Musings on Relevance and Rigor of Scholarly Research in Marketing

Questions pertaining to the relevance and rigor (or lack thereof) of scholarly research in business disciplines have been the focus of numerous articles in academic journals (Ruback and Innes 1988; Shrivastava 1987; Thomas and Tymon 1982; Wells 1993a) and commentaries in the business press (Byrne 1990; Jennings 1994). Assessments of academic research in the business disciplines that have appeared in the business press have been particularly critical, characterizing most published research as lacking managerial relevance. Business school professors are often exhorted to engage in managerially relevant research and chastised for pursuing research endeavors that apparently lack such relevance (Byrne 1990; Jennings 1994). 1