Knowledge Creation and Knowledge Appreciation in Deductive-Conceptual Consumer Research

A typical article in a top-tier business journal can require as much as $400,000 in academic labor costs (Terwiesch and Ulrich 2014). This estimate raises the question of what makes a contribution worthy of such a significant financial investment. How does an academic community determine the value of a contribution? We propose two criteria inform judgments of value: (1) the amount of knowledge creation and (2) the amount of knowledge appreciation. Implicit in our view is the idea that researchers should know how to create valuable knowledge and be able to anticipate how much stakeholders will appreciate that knowledge. In this tutorial, we discuss knowledge creation, knowledge appreciation, and a framework that jointly represents these two sources of value. We hope that this framework will allow scholars to engage in research activities that are valued by the scientific community.