Professor Caroline Wiertz awarded the Sheth Foundation Best Paper Award by the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science

Caroline Wiertz, Professor of Marketing and Associate Dean of Entrepreneurship has been awarded the prestigious the Sheth Foundation Best Paper Award for Volume 43 (2015) of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science for her paper “Does Twitter Matter? The Impact of Microblogging Word of Mouth on Consumers’ Adoption of New Movies” by the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS).

The article was chosen for the award by a vote of the members of the Editorial Review Board, after the Area Editors selected a shortlist of the top five papers published in 2015.

The research paper provides an empirical test of the “Twitter effect,” which suggests that microblogging word of mouth shared through Twitter and similar services affects early product adoption behaviours by immediately disseminating consumers’ post-purchase quality evaluations. This is a potentially crucial factor for the success of experiential media products and other products whose distribution strategy relies on a hyped release.

Professor Wiertz said, "This is really great news! We were among the first marketing scholars to work with Twitter data and encountered quite a bit of resistance in publishing the paper. We are greatful to JAMS for seeing its potential. We received a lot of nice messages from colleagues around the world, telling us that they are using the paper in their teaching. It's nice to know that it has an impact out there. The project wouldn't have been possible without the support of many colleagues at Cass - many thanks!"

The Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science is devoted to the study and improvement of marketing and serves as a vital link between scholarly research and practice by publishing research-based articles in the substantive domain of marketing. Professor Wiertz and her co-authors will receive an award plaque at the Academy of Marketing Science annual conference in May 2016.

The winning paper is available to download from the Social Science Research Network.