UT retail studies make top ranks

New findings indicate UT faculty in retail studies rank among the world’s highest in research productivity.

A study conducted by assistant professor Rodney Runyan and doctoral candidate Jonghan Hyun in the Department of Retail, Hospitality and Tourism Management demonstrated that the retail faculty produce a quantity of research in the top five nationally and top 20 internationally.

Only seven other U.S. universities rank on the international level.

“The study may motivate more talented students to include UT in their set of considerations,” Hyun said. “It goes without saying that this will lead the program to have an even more superior pool of grad students.”

The work exposes outsiders to the UT retail department.

“Our faculty tend to do research in three areas: consumer behavior, including e-commerce/m-commerce, small retailer entrepreneurship (and) international retailing,” Runyan said.

Consequently, Runyan and Hyun decided to evaluate the volume of research UT retail faculty were generating. Their study of the faculty’s production involved analysis of four prominent retail journals. They specifically examined the editions created over the last 15 years.

“Jonghan Hyun and I reviewed over 1,800 articles from the past 15 years, which appeared in the top four journals for retailing research,” Runyan said. “We recorded the authors of each article, including the university at which they worked. From these data, we were able to analyze the top authors and universities in terms of scholarly articles published over that time period.”

The discovery indicates a highly engaged faculty at UT, who actively participate in the advancement of their field. This engagement is clearly highly advantageous to UT students.

Notably, Professor Youn-Kyung Kim, who specializes in ethnic marketing and tourism, ranked eighth nationally for producing research. Professor Ann Fairhurst was ranked as well, garnering the 17th position.

Kim has authored “Experiential Retailing: Concepts and Strategies That Sell” and is also a recognized name in the study of experiential retail. Fairhurst has also authored a work exposing new factors in the process of internationalization for retailers.

Coupled with his new findings on the productivity of UT retail faculty, Runyan pioneered a scale that allows the user to quantify one kind of small business management orientation.

“For the university, the study provides concrete data which shows that UT is one of the top 10 institutions in terms of retailing journal output,” Hyun said.

The results indicate that UT is emerging as a highly competitive player in the field of retail research, a role that will prove beneficial to the student population.