Editorial---Maximizing Impact via Database Submissions

As Marketing Science publishes its first database paper in this issue (Bronnenberg, Kruger, and Mela 2008), has two more submitted in the pipeline, is receiving a large number of current submissions on Marketing citation analyses to assess impact (a good thing, and reflecting increased interest), and I receive (legitimate) questions such as “What is a database paper worth on one’s vita?” (which I will answer below), it seems like an opportunity to highlight the issue of maximizing impact, “broadly defined.” Throughout our careers, there are many possible ways in which we can have an impact on our field; and, isn’t this the outcome (when we integrate over all possible things we do) that we are trying to maximize? The impact methods that most people would agree upon as clear-cut, and would write about in tenure and promotion letters, statements for awards, etc. include our own research publications, the doctoral students we mentor, our teaching (both to fulltime students and executives), service to the field (reviewing, running conferences, etc.), our own cases, chapters, and/or books that we write, and work we have done with practitioners that has had an impact on practice. Those are easy. But where would we put something like a database paper? To me, the answer is not absolute, but there is one. Like any publication, and a database paper in Marketing Science is a publication as it goes through a publication procedure identical to that of any other submission (an Area Editor and two reviewers), there is only one answer: Read the paper! Did the database paper make you think? Did you read the paper and say, “Wow! Those are cool data.” Did the paper make you think, “I wish I had done this”? Did the paper make you think, “I am going to get those data right now”? In fact, there are many ways that one can “impress the field” with one’s data collection, description of the problems to which it can be applied, focus on managerial and practical issues, etc. This is the purpose of the print part of the database submission, plus the citations that come with it. Then, in addition to these short-term valence opportunities, measure its use in other research papers, the number of times it is cited, its use in doctoral seminars, etc., all things that can help one assess impact on the “back-end.” These help address the issue of “What is in it for me?” As one example, who among us would not take pride in the collection and dissemination of the Dominick’s Finer Foods Data, http://research.chicagogsb. edu/marketing/databases/dominicks/index.aspx? Who among us would say that it hasn’t had an impact on our field? It has led to the empirical validation of many of our important theories, to the creation of new theories, and it continues to do so almost 20 years later. Furthermore, it has had impact beyond our own field as its information on prices and, more particularly, a time-series of prices and associated costs are being used in economics and other related fields to answer important questions. Our hope at Marketing Science is that the IRI marketing database paper (Bronnenberg, Kruger, and Mela, 2008), published here, can have similar impact. So, how does it count? It counts to the degree that it is read, used by others, and cited, as with any publication we have that we hope has impact.