Five decades of the Journal of Consumer Affairs: A bibliometric analysis

This study presents a retrospective of the Journal of Consumer Affairs (JCA) using bibliographic analysis between 1967 and 2019. The results indicate that both the number of JCA's publications and citations grew markedly over time. The dominant contributors to the journal are authors affiliated with U.S. institutions. Trends show increasing organizational diversity and collaboration among authors. The journal's central themes are consumer perception, consumer behavior, financial behavior, consumer spending patterns, financial literacy, consumer decision‐making processes, and marketing practices. Statistically significant relationships exist between the following article attributes and citations based on our negative binomial regression analysis. Age has a negative association with citations, but the direction of association turns positive when considering non‐linearity. A positive association exists between the number of authors, references, and U.S. affiliation. A negative relationship exists with article order, non‐academic author, top institution affiliation (FT100), funding, lead article, title length, and conceptual article.     

Changes In Consumer Attitudes Toward Marketing,Consumerism and Government Regulation: 1971–1975

Trends in consumer attitudes toward business philosophy, product quality, advertising, consumer responsibilities, government regulation and price controls are examined. The findings of three national surveys indicate that the level of consumer discontent did not change substantially between 1971 and 1975. Despite expanding efforts to advance the interests of consumers, the basic criticisms and frustrations expressed by respondents in 1971 were echoed again in 1973 and 1975. However there were some notable trends in the kinds and magnitudes of consumer concerns over this period. The need to treat consumer dissatisfaction as a relative concept is emphasized, and it is suggested that comparisons of present levels of consumer unrest to a zero base would probably lead to exaggerated interpretations of current conditions.     

An analysis of the Journal of Consumer Studies and Home Economics 1977–93

Any field of study worthy of academic consideration and development needs a research base to support it. Many research practitioners working within the consumer studies and home economics areas have expressed fears about not only the lack of development of a research base but also the communication network within the research community. This study analyses one of the main research journals that is used by this research community, the Journal of Consumer Studies and Home Economics, and examines its contribution. By analysing its development over the first 17 years of its existence, it has been shown that there is an international research community which is beginning to communicate with itself. However, these research practitioners still seem to rely more on research material from outside their own professional area rather than from work published in their own research journals. A lack of an indexing service covering the consumer studies and home economics areas continues to hamper dissemination of research material to a wider academic audience.     

Consumer Boycotts in the United States, 1970–1980: Contemporary Events in Historical Perspective

Despite the theoretical and practical interest in consumer boycotts, little in the way of an empirical literature has accumulated on this form of marketplace action. The present study surveyed news sources and participants in an effort to understand consumer boycotts which occurred in the United States in the 1970–1980 period. A total of 90 boycotts was identified and described. The findings indicate that boycotts have involved an unusually wide variety of protest groups, target organizations, and social concerns in cities and states in every region of the United States. They also appear to be on the increase. Some factors which may influence the success of boycotts are identified and discussed. Also discussed are ways in which consumer boycotts in the United States have changed and ways in which they have remained the same since the turn of the century. Of special interest here is the growing use of “surrogate boycotts” to deal with issues with origins outside of the marketplace.     

Bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Consumer Studies and Home Economics, 1977–1983

Two questions formed the structure for examining the formal communication among researchers using the Journal of Consumer Studies and Home Economics (JCSHE) The first question pertained to the interrelationship between the literature published and cited in JCSHE. The second asked what impact the literature published in JCSHE had on authors publishing in other journals. By performing Bradford analysis using the 1,160 journal references cited by authors of 210 articles in the first seven volumes of JCSHE, 26 core journals were identified. JCSHE was ranked second because it was cited 54 times in 37 articles by 29 authors. Through citation analysis 17 citing articles published in 12 journals other than JCSHE were found. Seven of these 17 citing articles were published in other home economics journals.     

Consumer Affairs Departments in the United States and the Netherlands: A Comparative Analysis

Over a decade ago Hansen and Schoenheit (1986), in their Journal of Consumer Policy article, concluded that Consumer Affairs Departments (CADs) offer potential for improving organisational performance in the market place and that their transferability to the European context would be warranted. In this article we trace and analyse the development of Consumer Affairs Departments in the United States and the Netherlands on the basis of fourteen case studies. On the basis of a comparative analysis we conjecture that the application of information technology, the application of communication technology, and personnel management style could be considered as major determinants of differences with regard to CADs in the aforementioned countries. We conclude the article with a number of building blocks that organisations may use in preparing their CADs for the decade to come.     

The Brave New World of Organ Transplantation: Issues and Challenges from a Consumer Affairs Perspective

Policy makers are trying to narrow the widening gap between the demand and the supply of transplantable organs. They are doing so largely without contributions from consumer affairs specialists. This article establishes the need for involvement of consumer affairs scholars and suggests directions for further empirical and critical inquiry. Substantive research must be grounded more firmly in established theoretical constructs and behavioral theories.     

Solicitation and the Legal Profession: A New Issue for Consumer Affairs Professionals

While issues relating to the advertising of legal services have received much attention in the scholarly literature, this has not been the case for solicitation by lawyers, even though it appears that lawyers are more interested in being able to solicit than to advertise. In this article the legal issues surrounding solicitation are identified and tied to a basic communications model; then research propositions are presented along with the results of a survey of attitudes held toward solicitation by 125 lawyers practicing in two Rocky Mountain states. The survey results suggest that solicitation is not going to be easily accepted and that many lawyers may have trouble evaluating differences among solicitation, direct mail and advertising. The survey results also suggest that attitudes toward solicitation may be changing in that younger, less experienced respondents expressed more liberal attitudes toward solicitation than their older and more experienced colleagues. Taken together the findings of this article strongly suggest that solicitation is likely to offer a complex and challenging development for consumer affairs professionals in the years ahead.     

普通消费者口碑和专家评论对消费者购买决策的影响研究

在线评论作为营销信息中新的要素,已成为当下消费者购买产品或服务时的重要因素。文章根据获得诊断性模型和调节导向理论,引入自我调节导向作为调节变量,探讨在线评论信息源对品牌评价和购买意愿的影响。文章采用情境模拟实验方法,考察了普通消费者口碑和专家评论对消费者的品牌评价和购买意愿具有不同的影响。具体来说当消费者处于促进调节导向时,普通消费者口碑比专家评论更容易使消费者产生良好的品牌评价和购买意愿;当消费者处于预防调节导向时,专家评论比普通消费者口碑更容易使消费者产生良好的品牌评价和购买意愿,其中感知诊断性在这个过程中起到中介作用。文章整合了不同领域的理论,拓宽了不同来源的在线评论对消费者影响的理解力,而且研究结论对网站的营销人员如何管理在线评论有一定的启示意义。     

Trends in the market for entrepreneurship faculty, 1989–1998

The last decade has seen a dramatic rise in the number and status of entrepreneurship programs in schools of business and management. The popularity of entrepreneurship courses has increased dramatically among both graduate and undergraduate students. Alumni and external constituencies of schools of business have generally been supportive of the development of entrepreneurship programs, and in fact in many instances it has been the demands of these constituencies that have led to the creation or expansion of entrepreneurship programs within these schools. The growth in entrepreneurship programs has been fostered by an increase in the popularity of entrepreneurship, an increase in the status accorded entrepreneurs, as well as an increase in the recognition by the business press of the importance of entrepreneurship in the larger economy. Despite the increase in popularity within the field, there has also been considerable resistance from within the faculties of many institutions to the expansion of entrepreneurship programs. Faculty outside the field have been, and many remain, very skeptical about the validity of entrepreneurship as an academic field, the quality and rigor of entrepreneurship research and the need to hire academic faculty to teach and research in the field. The last decade has seen the confluence of these opposing forces.This disparity has created the question of whether the external forces supporting entrepreneurship are overcoming the inertia inherent in academic institutions and succeeding in institutionalizing the study of entrepreneurship within schools of business and management. This study hopes to shed some light on which of these forces is winning by addressing the question of whether the field of entrepreneurship is moving toward or has been institutionalized as part of the curriculum and research within schools of business and management. It also examines the institutionalization of the field by analyzing the change in the number and level of entrepreneurship positions, the quality of the recruiting institutions as well as the number, level and training of entrepreneurship candidates during the years 1989–1998. Data was obtained from the Academy of Management Placement Roster and The Chronicle of Higher Education for the years 1989–1998. Previous entrepreneurship education researchers have examined the number of endowed chairs and professorships, conferences, journals, programs and various centers for entrepreneurial education, however sparse research, if any, has been performed on the trends and characteristics of candidates and positions in the field of entrepreneurship.The results of this study are very encouraging. Both the demand for and the supply of entrepreneurship faculty have increased spectacularly during the last nine years. Between 1989/90 and 1997/98 the number of entrepreneurship positions increased 253% while the number of candidates increased by 94%. During this period the number of positions that list entrepreneurship as the primary field has increased ten-fold from 5 to 50 and the number of candidates that list entrepreneurship as their primary field has increased four-fold from 5 to 20. During the same period the number of secondary and tertiary positions have increased 116% and 78%, respectively, and the number of secondary and tertiary candidates have increased by 67% and 53%. The percentage of entrepreneurship positions listing entrepreneurship as the primary field has increased from 19% in 89/90 to 54% in 1997/98. Overall, the growth in the number of primary entrepreneurship positions is very encouraging.In the end, the results of this study are very encouraging. Both the demand and the supply of entrepreneurship faculty have increased spectacularly during the last nine years. The field has clearly made significant progress toward being institutionalized. However, it is still too soon to conclude that the commitment to entrepreneurship by schools of business and management is irreversible. One clear indication of the tenuous status is that, unlike strategy and international business, there has been no mandate from the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business that entrepreneurship be incorporated into the curriculum of all accredited schools. Entrepreneurship remains an elective subject in most schools and therefore depends on student interest. The field has made great strides during the 1990s, but a couple of hurdles remain.     

Seller-Financing of Homes: A Consumer Economic Perspective

In recent years, the proportion of home purchases financed by lending institutions has declined and the use of alternative financing methods has increased. This paper examines the costs, risks and benefits associated with seller-financing, a popular alternative financing method. The topic is discussed from the perspectives of the buyer and the seller. An empirical analysis is also conducted of condominium sales in Hawaii to gauge the impact of seller-financing upon the housing market as well as its economic effects upon buyers and sellers. Overall, it is concluded that buyers are the primary beneficiaries of seller-financing.