Optimal standard measures for marketing

ABSTRACT

In this article, the author argues that marketing will not become a science until we agree on an optimal standard measure (OSM) for each of our major constructs. The case for OSMs is made by critically examining the leading alternative measures of four constructs used widely in marketing management – corporate business reputation, corporate ethical reputation, customer satisfaction, and customer recommendation – and showing how we might progress towards designing an OSM for each.

KEYWORDS:

• Failure of psychometric measures
• multiple-item versus single-item measures
• optimal standard measures (OSMs)

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Erratum

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Grahame Dowling, Faculty of Business, University of Technology Sydney, for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John R. Rossiter

John R. Rossiter is an honorary professorial fellow in the School of Management, Operations & Marketing, Faculty of Business, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia, and a visiting professor of marketing in the Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, Bergische University, Wuppertal, Germany. His interests and publications are in marketing theory, buyer behaviour, advertising, and more recently social science measurement with particular applications to marketing.