Business profs rank among most published
MAUREEN SMITHE
Assistant News Editor
Two Notre Dame professors have shown that cutting-edge research papers attract a national readership — again and again and again.
Marketing professors William Wilkie and Joel Urbany were recently cited in the 1999 Journal of Consumer Psychology as two of the most frequently published authors in their field. The designation places them in the top nine percent of published consumer marketing researchers.
From the late 1970s to the 1990s, Wilkie's and Urbany's research has appeared in "a lot of places," Wilkie said. "I believe the study covered the `Journal of Marketing,' `Journal of Marketing Research' and `Journal of Consumer Research,' which are three of the elite journals in our field," Wilkie said.
Wilkie has been on the Notre Dame faculty since 1987, and he recruited his colleague Urbany to the University five years ago.
"He is a leading researcher in consumer behavior and is an excellent teacher," Wilkie said. Both men study how consumers interpret and affect information.
"I work on issues involving marketing, consumers and public policy," Wilkie said. "My work in the journals concentrating on the general area of consumer information."
Urbany's research does not differ greatly from Wilkie's.
"Most of the work I've done is how consumers search for information and how they search for price information," Urbany said. From an academic standpoint, published research is crucial to both professors and the University, they said.
"Being published is creating new knowledge," Urbany said. "It is really what scholarship is all about — the advancement of the field."
Wilkie, who graduated from Notre Dame in 1966, agrees.
"I came away from my undergraduate studies at Notre Dame with the idealistic belief that universities represent a special sector in society in which the search for knowledge and understanding is prized, and I decided that that's what I wanted to do with my life as well," Wilkie said.
"In this sense, publications are forms of contributions to knowledge and are quite in keeping with the mission of a university," he added.
Wilkie recognizes a university's direct need for published findings. "If Notre Dame is to be a great university, it needs to contribute to the body of thought in the world as well as to the education of its graduates," he said. "With respect to research here, my research keeps my teaching up to date on thinking in the field."
All News Stories for Friday, November 19, 1999
