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People invest much time and money in consuming knowledge. We argue that people systematically vary in the types of knowledge they prefer to know and that such preferences can have broad implications for consumer behavior. We illustrate this in the context of the preference for practical versus theoretical knowledge. Specifically, we propose and show that some people prefer to know more about how to apply and make use of phenomena they encounter, whereas others prefer to know more about what explicates and underlies the phenomena. We further propose and demonstrate that the extent to which people prefer practical versus theoretical knowledge can help predict their behaviors in a wide variety of consumption domains such as education (e.g., choice of learning materials, preference for different MBA programs), marketing information (e.g., skepticism toward advertising and reference prices), and intertemporal discounting (e.g., reaction to service delays; preference for fast food restaurants).

The objective of this paper is to simultaneously identify influential articles, journals, institutions, and researchers in marketing research in recent years using a threshold citation analysis.

The threshold citation analysis counts the number of times a research work is cited by articles published in a set of elite marketing journals. In order to be included in the analysis, the research work must be cited 18 or more times. This threshold is used to measure influence and is unique in the ranking of marketing research. The threshold citation analysis incorporates the quality, the importance, and the influence of research works in the ranking criteria and is not limited to a set of journals nor confined by the year a research work is published.

The three frequently cited articles in marketing research are Fornell and Larcker, Baron and Kenny, and Anderson and Gerbing. Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research are the three marketing journals having the greatest influence in marketing research. As for the ranking of institutions, the three most influential institutions in marketing research are Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan while the three frequently cited authors in marketing research are Richard Oliver, Valarie Zeithaml, and James Anderson.

First, this study identifies influential research works, journals, institutions, and researchers in marketing simultaneously and is in sharp contrast to the traditional approaches that identify influential research works, journals, institutions, and researchers separately. Second, this analysis mitigates the limitations that have plagued the quantity oriented publication‐based approach and the quality oriented citation‐based approach, making these findings more robust and inclusive. Finally, this paper identifies non‐marketing journals, non‐marketing articles, and scholarly books that have significant impact on contemporary marketing research. Consequently, this study offers new and comprehensive insights to the rankings research in marketing that were neglected by previous studies.