The QT and CB Divide in Marketing

We document the systematic differences in publication and citation between quantitative modeling (QT) and consumer behavior (CB) researchers in the field of marketing and examine how these differences evolve over the career cycle. We further study how QT and CB publications and citations are evaluated at three milestones of the career. Across all current tenure-track marketing faculty in the world’s top 150 schools, we find that QTs and CBs exhibit very different behavior in publication and citation over their career cycle. In the beginning years of the career, CB researchers have higher research productivity than QTs and far outnumber QTs in publications. In the subsequent years, QT researchers’ higher productivity helps narrow their gaps with CBs in publications; however, it still takes over 15 years for QTs to overtake CBs in tier-1 and tier-2 publications. The fact that CBs publish earlier, publish more and enjoy higher citations per publication makes them outshine QTs in citations throughout the entire career, albeit with a shrinking margin. When it comes to career development, we find that the job market, associate promotion and full promotion treat CB and QT publications and citations differently. To have the same placement as QT candidates, CB job candidates need to have one more tier-1 or tier-2 publication. Ceteris paribus, CB researchers have significantly shorter expected time to associate promotion than QTs at lower-rank schools, and to full promotion at top-rank schools. For associate promotion, tier-1 CB publications are discounted in all schools. For full promotion, tier-1 and tier-2 CB publications get discounted only in top quartile schools, while outside the top quartile, tier-1 CB publications are not discounted, and surprisingly, tier-2 CB publications appear to enjoy significant premiums. Across all schools, citations do not affect associate and full promotions for QTs, but they can significantly improve the chance of promotion for CBs at top-rank schools. Further, publications of different tiers play very different roles at the career milestones. We discuss the implications of these findings for faculty recruitment, evaluation and promotion, school rankings, and the development of marketing academia.

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