Globalization of Authorship in the Marketing Discipline: Does It Help or Hinder the Field?

Marketing scholars have reflected upon the marketing discipline's internal evolution before. However, no prior study has assessed the globalization of authorship in our discipline, let alone assessed its consequences for the field. This paper addresses the following two questions: (1) Is there evidence of increasing globalization of authorship in the marketing discipline? (2) If so, does it help or hinder the field? Our work shows empirically how the globalization of our discipline evolved, how U.S. dominance is fading, and which countries experienced a rise in productivity of their affiliate and native scholars. Globalization hinders the field, because it has a negative effect on the impact of several major journals (most importantly, the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Marketing Research). Globalization helps the field, because it has a positive effect on the diversity of our discipline. Important implications of our research are: (1) Journals and sponsoring organizations should strive for more international meetings. (2) Editors, reviewers, and authors should pay more attention to the global relevance of the research they publish, review, and submit. (3) Individual researchers should aim to be part of the global community of marketing scientists through, for instance, international research visits.