ANNOUNCING A NEW SECTION IN JCR:
RE-INQUIRIES

About 18 months ago I was invited to write a concise response from an editor’s perspective (Mick 2000) on a then-forthcoming article (Hubbard and Ryan 2000) in Educational and Psychological Measurement. The authors—like others long before them (e.g., Bakan 1966; Meehl 1978)—criticized the overemphasis on statistical significance testing for establishing the soundness or validity of knowledge claims emanating from empirical quantitative research. To rectify this practice, Hubbard and Ryan made a strong appeal for more replication-oriented research. This is also another déjà vu, being the same advice offered for years by social scientists (e.g., Cohen 1994; Morrison and Henkel 1970), including marketing and consumer researchers (e.g., Farley, Lehmann, and Mann 1998; Monroe 1992a, 1992b; Sawyer and Peter 1983; Winer 1999). But it has remained largely unheeded.

To be sure, philosophy of science generally, and replication-oriented research specifically, are complex and controversial issues in a multi-paradigmatic, multi-disciplinary field such as ours. Notwithstanding, as I mulled over recent appeals to leading journals to establish sections dedicated to replication-oriented research (e.g., Hubbard and Ryan 2000; Robinson and Levin 1997), I became convinced that JCR should do much more to encourage research ventures and dialogues that examine the robustness of key conceptual and substantive insights that our field maintains about consumer behavior. By robustness I refer to a collection of interrelated issues regarding the integrity, verisimilitude, and transferability (or generalizability) of knowledge claims. To examine robustness implies, in the very broadest sense, to re-inquire. And by re-inquire, I mean to re-think, re-test, re-interpret, re-analyze, or re-present—the objects of which are the theories, frameworks, themes, data, findings, and methodologies generated in prior scholarship. As such, there is an irony to concede that we have not done much re-inquiry despite the fact—as Kent Monroe aptly noted to me—the very name of our field and this journal is consumer re-search.

Consequently, I began to develop a brief proposal for initiating a new section in JCR to be called Re-Inquiries. I circulated a draft for comments from past editors of JCR and several other knowledgeable individuals. After revising, the proposal was presented to, and approved by, the JCR Policy Board.

This editorial seeks to establish the spirit, mission, and modes of Re-Inquiries, the evaluation criteria for related submissions, and the procedures by which submissions will be reviewed. However, since it is an initiative for which we cannot foresee all the processes, outcomes, and reactions ahead, the Re-Inquiries section must remain flexible for changing and improving as the field of consumer behavior and JCR evolve.

The spirit of Re-Inquiries will be comparative investigation that is tightly focused, rigorous, and collegial. Its mission is to inspire, advocate, and publish research that corroborates, qualifies, or questions the robustness of previously published insights about consumer behavior or methods used. Re-Inquiries is not Research Notes and it is not a reincarnation of JCR’s previous Research in Brief section. Insofar as it involves solely and highly pinpointed comparative investigation, Re-Inquiries is at once narrower and yet potentially more programmatically influential.

The modes of scholarship for Re-Inquiries will be quite varied, from empirical to conceptual, and from quantitative to qualitative. A re-inquiry may involve selected aspects of work the author himself or herself has previously published, or noteworthy facets of work by other researchers. The prior work may have appeared in JCR, or any other publication outlet, as long as the topic is consumer behavior and the given focus is important to the field. In this context, importance of the re-inquiry focus could be a function of one or more things. For example, the focus could be a thesis or finding about a phenomenon or behavior frequently evinced in daily consumer life; it could be an interesting but also surprising or counter-intuitive data pattern from prior research; it could be a process model or analytical technique from an oft-cited or award-winning publication; or it could be a theory or finding that is shared and communicated in many corners of the field (e.g., via literature reviews and textbooks).

For empirical re-inquiries, some of the most common submissions expected will be those that are quantitative and customarily labeled as replications in the positivist paradigm. There are different types of replications along a continuum from those called direct or statistical that change little or nothing about the design characteristics of the research sought to be replicated (e.g., sampling, operationalizations, data analysis), to those replications called conceptual or extension where purposive changes to design characteristics are made to seek triangulation (and these can also include one or more new variables to assess boundary conditions). There are numerous impactful quantitative studies that are ripe for re-inquiry within our field’s historical and contemporary scope, on topics such as brand judgments and preferences, decision making and choice, mass communication and advertising processing, and materialism and compulsive buying. The Re-Inquiries section will consider for publication all forms of conventional replication studies, including those that are direct, provided that the focus is inarguably important for the field (as outlined above). It may be worth noting that some commentators on an early draft of the Re-Inquiries proposal felt that only conceptual or extension replications should be published. While this opinion has undeniable force, Hunter’s essay in this issue of JCR offers an opposing and imposing viewpoint.

The value, if not viability, of conducting qualitative empirical re-inquiries are more debatable. There are certainly well articulated perspectives—primarily by the highly relativistic qualitative researchers from post-positivist camps—that the impermanence of reality, the cultural embeddedness (i.e., arbitrariness) of human functioning and meaning, and the malleability and intricacy of numerous situational factors combine to render the search for nomothetic insights and the conduct of re-inquiries ill fated. This perspective is quite legitimate. However, there are also many qualitative researchers for whom the concept of re-inquiries has worth. For example, in their intriguingly titled book Meta-Ethnography, Noblitt and Hare (1988) argue that comparative analysis in ethnographic research can involve combining, contrasting, and adding (extending) insights through multiple data sets (in our field, see Arnould and Price 1999). In a similar vein, Burawoy (1991) contends that qualitative data can be used to re-evaluate and refine prior theories (see, e.g., Fournier and Mick 1999). In consumer research, one could imagine qualitative re-inquiry that involves a different site, different types of informants, or new analysis of supportive and negative cases to examine the robustness of prior interpretive insights. For example, would the nature of sacralization as identified by Belk, Wallendorf, and Sherry (1989) also appear in U. S. consumption contexts other than those studied, or in non-U.S. cultural settings, and would others factors besides culture modify the qualities or processes the authors asserted about sacralization and desacralization? In short, do Belk et al.’s (1989) insights have "perspicacity," that is, do they "travel"? (Stewart 1998, p. 47) Since the philosophy of science issues for Re-Inquiries are likely to be more contentious among qualitative researchers, each must personally decide whether the new section is concordant with his or her own philosophy and publication goals. In any event, Re-Inquiries will always welcome these submissions.

Re-Inquiries will also be receptive to non-empirical works. These could include, for instance, manuscripts from the tradition of the humanities that provocatively re-visit a particular theme or set of knowledge claims developed previously and primarily through literature review and conceptual argumentation. Examples of this sort of humanities-based research in consumer behavior include past articles on advertising (e.g., Scott 1994; Stern 1989) or the technique of historical analysis (Smith and Lux 1993). Re-Inquiries of such works might seek to endorse, expand, and/or qualify the clarity, logical consistency, or applicability of prior insights and techniques through additional argumentation and illustrative examples.

In sum, the spirit and mission of Re-Inquiries are to examine the robustness of prior insights and methods in consumer research through comparative analysis. The available range of re-inquiry topics and modes will continue to be spacious.

The evaluation criteria for submissions to Re-Inquiries are, overall, no different than for other papers submitted to JCR. The importance of the chief topic, the lucidity of the writing, and the quality of the design, data, illustrations, analyses, and arguments all play a role in judging the overall contribution. Corroborative findings as well as conflicting, marginal, and even null findings will be acceptable, given that the outcomes are, as best they can be determined, trustworthy. The topmost difference for submission to Re-Inquiries is the selective focus on examining robustness. Papers that have little or much less concern with the robustness of prior research per se, will continue to be reviewed as conventional submissions to the journal.

Submissions considered for Re-Inquiries will be assigned to a specially designated, non-anonymous associate editor for the new section. I am very pleased to announce that Kent Monroe has graciously agreed to serve as the initial associate editor of Re-Inquiries. As a former editor of JCR, Kent has long been committed to the idea of re-inquiry research (see Monroe 1992a, 1992b) and he is familiar with, and indeed published as editor, papers emerging from a broad array of paradigmatic foundations.

Submissions to the Re-Inquiries section will generally follow procedures parallel to those for conventional submissions to the journal. One difference is that authors are asked to point out in their accompanying letters to the editor that they wish for the submission to be considered for the Re-Inquiries section. The associate editor and the editor will then work together in choosing appropriate reviewers for submitted papers. In order to streamline the review process, in many cases only two reviewers will be assigned and the editorial team will strive as often as possible to make definitive editorial decisions after the first round of reviews (i.e., reject or conditionally accept). Once the reviews come in, the associate editor will compose a short report for the editor, and then the editor will develop an editorial decision on the manuscript that is forwarded to the author.

While there are no preset length restrictions on submissions, because the section is attentively focused on re-inquiries, authors are strongly encouraged to draft papers that are as condensed and to-the-point as possible. Submissions of quantitative empirical papers should also strive to report the types of descriptive statistics (e.g., means, standard deviations, correlation matrices, other effect size calculations such as eta-squared or omega-squared) that can be potentially used in subsequent meta-analytical studies of the related conceptual and substantive issues (see Hunter, Schmidt, and Jackson 1982). Qualitative empirical submissions should also reveal data that best afford juxtapositions with related prior work.

Authors who are not certain whether a prospective, developing, or finished project of their own is appropriate for Re-Inquiries, should feel free to contact the editor.

We will launch the new Re-Inquiries section with three consecutive and specially prepared essays to spur more thinking and discussion about the nature and role of re-inquiry in consumer research. The first essay, appearing in this issue, is a stimulating—if not dramatic—statement by Jack Hunter from a positivist orientation on the urgent need for numerous replications. Our next issue of JCR (September 2001) will include a second essay on re-inquiry, this one by anthropologist and qualitative researcher Rick Wilk, who will rouse readers with the argument that re-inquiry is paradoxically impossible and necessary, and that a militant middle ground for Re-Inquiries is essential. The third essay, forthcoming in the December 2001 issue, is by Bill Wells, a pioneer of consumer research. He warns us mightily about a consumer behavior field continuing to jeopardize itself with a tradition of singly conducted investigations, what he calls the perils of n = 1. I am indebted to each of these individuals for taking up the invitation to write about re-inquiry and its disputations, difficulties, and promises.

I am also pleased to announce that the first article for Re-Inquiries will appear in the September 2001 issue. The article, by Bettencourt and Houston, is both apropos and unexpectedly timely as JCR brings to fruition the innovation of the Re-Inquiries section. The authors re-examine Tellis, Chandy, and Ackerman’s (1999) study of intellectual diversity in leading marketing journals, and find that JCR is clearly more diverse than Tellis et al. concluded.

The anticipated merits and the very concept of Re-Inquiries are not new; to the best of my knowledge, devoting a section of a premier journal is. Inevitably then, there will be uncertainty for all involved as the section starts up. However, it is my hope that Re-Inquiries will offer fresh and exciting opportunities for researchers of all kinds to establish more confidently the achievements, limits, and credibility of the knowledge we claim about consumer behavior.

I thank several persons for their candid and perceptive responses to the development of the Re-Inquiries proposal that undergirds this editorial. They include Russ Belk, Bob Burnkrant, Doug Holt, Rich Lutz, Kent Monroe, Alan Sawyer, Terry Shimp, Brian Sternthal, Bill Wells, Russ Winer, and each of the current Associate Editors of JCR. It should be pointed out that these individuals differed in their opinions of varied aspects of the proposal. Any errors or drawbacks remain my responsibility.

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