Measuring DEI at JCR
Consumer research is often involved with identifying and then solving problems facing consumers, marketers, and policy makers; some of these are really hard problems. Research has demonstrated that the more diverse the problem solvers, the greater the group’s ability to find innovative solutions to difficult and complex problems (Asai and Bauerle, 2016; Page, 2007; Jackson and Joshi, 2011; Kets and Sandroni, 2015). We need diversity and yet we understand that issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in academic scholarship are broad and often ignored. At the Journal of Consumer Research, DEI issues may include issues of race and gender, geography, institution type, and access to research funding.
In order to see where we are and where we aspire to be in terms of DEI in our researchers, we need data. The journal has never asked for DEI data on authors, and we understand the sensitivity of this information and the need to separate it from the manuscript review process. Working with the Policy Board, the current Editors have created a mechanism for collecting baseline data in a confidential process. We want to know who is submitting work to the journal, and who is ultimately being published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
We have partnered with Pope Consulting, a consulting firm specializing in diversity, equity, inclusion, and culture change. Their role in this project will be to collect anonymized data from submitting author teams and author teams of accepted manuscripts. We will provide authors a link to a voluntary survey they host, and they will send us anonymized data quarterly. There will never be a connection between the manuscript information and the DEI survey information. But if we achieve a decent response rate, and submitting authors provide their information to Pope Consulting (and we hope you will) we can measure baseline data at the journal — an important first step toward our goal of greater diversity in consumer research.
All responses will be completely anonymous; there are no links between any manuscript information and survey responses.
If you have any questions at all, please reach out to June Cotte.
