Knowledge Development and Scientific Status in Consumer-Behavior Research: A Social Exchange Perspective

Abstract

The communication patterns (1977 through 1988) between the Journal of Consumer Research (JCR) and other related disciplines are examined from a social exchange perspective. As one way of assessing scientific status, we completed a citation analysis to consider both the journals that JCR authors cite and the journals that cite JCR. The results reveal that JCR performs an important bridging function between the psychology and marketing literatures. However, JCR has had considerably less impact on other cognate disciplines, in particular those represented by the members of its policy board. In general, we find that JCR does appear to be making some progress in achieving its goal of becoming an interdisciplinary consumer-research publication.