Invited Paper—A Keyword History of Marketing Science

Abstract

T his paper considers the history of keywords used in Marketing Science to develop insights on the evolution of marketing science. Several findings emerge. First, "pricing" and "game theory" are the most ubiquitous words. More generally, the three C's and four P's predominate, suggesting that keywords and common practical frameworks align. Various trends exist. Some words, like "pricing," remain popular over time. Others, like "game theory" and "hierarchical Bayes," have become more popular. Finally, some words are superseded by others, like "diffusion" by "social networking." Second, the overall rate of new keyword introductions has increased, but the likelihood they will remain in use has decreased. This suggests a maturation of the discipline or a long-tail effect. Third, a correspondence analysis indicates three distinct eras of marketing modeling, comporting roughly with each of the past three decades. These eras are driven by the emergence of new data and business problems, suggesting a fluid field responsive to practical problems. Fourth, we consider author publication survival rates, which increase up to six papers and then decline, possibly as a result of changes in ability or motivation. Fifth, survival rates vary with the recency and nature of words. We conclude by discussing the implications for additional journal space and the utility of standardized classification codes.

Authorship and Content Analysis of Engineering Education Research: A Case Study

“…In this paper the usage of frequency based analysis is for studying the evolution of EER as a field and for this purpose keyword and key-phrase analysis is performed. A similar study for the field of Marketing Science which relies on the usage of keyword counts can be found at [81]. A. Duvvuru et al [82] conducted a keyword based study for the European Journal of Operational Research.…”

The Evolution of Marketing Channels: Trends and Research Directions

“…Although not a definitive measure of scholarly influence, we identify the topics with the greatest impact on channel research according to the annual, relative citation percentage for that topic. To determine the annual, relative citation percentage for a given topic, we divide the number of citations about that topic published in a given year by the total number of citations for all topics listed within its perspective, similar to the procedure employed in Mela, Roos, and Deng (2013). The number of citations reflects the relevant keywords within each perspective, obtained from Reuter's Web of Science database and coded using the keywords, titles, and abstracts provided by the authors.…”

Editorial—Marketing Science: A Strategic Review

“…This editorial complements an invited paper in this issue about the evolution of marketing science as seen through the keywords that were selected for Marketing Science articles (Mela et al 2013). That paper illustrates that the field has been dynamic since its inception.…”