Religiosity scales in marketing research

Purpose This paper aims to identify religiosity scale usage in academic marketing articles and compare the effectiveness of different religiosity scales in predicting marketing and consumer behavior outcomes. Design/methodology/approach Articles (n = 397) in the top 20 marketing journals are reviewed and a follow-up study is conducted that compares 22 religiosity scales in predicting 18 marketing variables. Findings Most scales are from preexisting sources (64.3%), only 20% are multi-dimensional and over 58% are used in only one journal article. Only 22.5% of possible regressions in the follow-up study predicting marketing variables from religiosity scales were significant. Research limitations/implications This research is limited by the journals and dependent variables chosen. Implications include diversify research topics, expand publication outlets, decrease use of author-generated scales, increase use of multi-item and multi-dimensional measures, replicate findings methodologically and conceptually and make cultural context adaptations. Practical implications Marketers would benefit from using preexisting scales, ensuring that religiosity is measured using a multi-item measure that contains appropriate items for the dominant religious beliefs of the sample, as well as consider multi-dimensional measures to best guide marketing strategy decisions, such as target market definition. Originality/value This is the first research study to compare the use of religiosity scales in marketing. This offers key value to the marketing literature by highlighting tactics to take to improve consistency in research practices to increase the comparability and accuracy of findings.