The Journal of Public Policy & Marketing at 40: Celebrating History and Impact

Abstract

The Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPP&M) published its first issue in 1982, and over the course of the next year we are celebrating 40 years of scholarship in its pages. Under the stewardship of founding editor Thomas C. Kinnear and the bold visions of the editors who followed, the Journal has featured change-making research that tackles some of society’s most pressing issues and questions. From its inception, and apparent even in the articles in JPP&M, Volume 1, Issue 1, the Journal has confronted topics as fundamental as human quality of life (Sirgy, Samli, and Meadow 1982), pollution (Aaker and Bagozzi 1982), conservation (Allen, Calantone, and Schewe 1982), and global consumerism (Klein 1982), to name just a few. Research questions in these domains remain relevant and persistent today and speak to the broad societal impact the Journal has made since its founding. Anniversary milestones represent excellent times to review what has been accomplished in a body of knowledge, such as a scholarly repository like JPP&M. Like other celebratory editorials and articles (i.e., Sprott and Miyazaki’s [2002] JPP&M at 20 and Wilkie and Moore’s [2011] JPP&M at 30 editor reflections), we attempt to take stock of how the Journal has evolved across its four decades in the field. As coeditors, we also see a need for the type of rigorous, impactful work published in JPP&M now more than ever before. Our world continues to endure a global pandemic and its myriad repercussions. Societies have been ravaged by injustices toward various racial and ethnic minority groups, a rise in nationalism and radicalization, and attacks on democracy. Confronting these challenges through academic research and policyinfused scholarship is at the very core of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing. Informed by its past, we are confident that the Journal will continue to be a proud home to scholarship on questions that matter to a broad swath of stakeholders and whose contributions and insights improve our world. With this in mind, we sought to combine both celebration of the past and inspiration for the future in our 40th anniversary editorials and two special sections. Celebrating the past is an important feature of marking any milestone. In this editorial, we use various analyses to appreciate the past four decades of research in the Journal and to empirically evaluate JPP&M’s scholarly focus and impact over time. We describe those efforts and share our findings and their implications in the following sections. In a separate, forward-looking editorial (forthcoming in January 2022), we analyze future directions for the Journal, attempting to uncover topics, methods, and trends that will shape its next several decades. In addition to the insights shared in this editorial, we wanted to blend a celebration of the past, with an eye toward the future in a set of commentaries and articles featured in both anniversary special sections. In this issue, we are delighted to feature insights and perspectives from founding editor Thomas C. Kinnear and his immediate successor Patrick E. Murphy in a historical commentary. Under their initial, nurturing guidance, and further developed through the thought leadership of the editors that followed (Michael Mazis, Debbie Scammon, Craig Andrews, Joel Cohen, Ron Hill, David Stewart, Scot Burton, Pam Scholder Ellen, and Josh Weiner), the Journal changed the landscape of marketing scholarship and has continued to flourish. Kinnear and Murphy (2021) nicely chronicle this editorial evolution. As we noted in our inaugural editorial (Martin and Scott 2021), in addition to its proud history, we believe that the future is incredibly bright for JPP&M. We are constantly inspired by the scholars who bring novel insights and perspectives to help shape the marketing and public policy (MPP) community and its agenda, and who make exciting new contributions to the Journal. As such, this issue also features commentaries from a set of exemplary “emerging” scholars in the MPP community on cutting-edge topics and initiatives. We invited all past American Marketing Association (AMA) Marketing and