Faculty Profile

Dr. Roland Rust
Distinguished University Professor
David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing
Executive Director of Center for Excellence in Service
Executive Director of Center for Complexity in Business

Ph.D., Business Administration
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Robert H. Smith School of Business
3451 Van Munching Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
Phone: (301) 405-4300
Fax: (301) 405-0146
E-mail: rrust@rhsmith.umd.edu
Curriculum Vitae  

 Roland Rust

Joined University of Maryland in 2000.

Roland T. Rust is Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, where he is founder and Executive Director of two research centers: the Center for Excellence in Service and the Center for Complexity in Business. He is also Visiting Chair in Marketing Science at Erasmus University (Netherlands), International Research Fellow of Oxford University’s Center for Corporate Reputation (UK) and International Fellow at the CTF Service Research Center at Karlstad University (Sweden). He was chair of the Department of Marketing at Maryland for eight years, during which he presided over a dramatic improvement in the marketing faculty—in his last year as chair the department ranked number one in the world in number of publications in the top four marketing journals.

His lifetime achievement honors include the AMA Irwin McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award, Fellow of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science, the Paul D. Converse Award, AMA’s Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award, AMA’s Churchill Award for Lifetime Achievement in Marketing Research, the Distinguished Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science, AMA’s Mahajan Award for Career Contribution to Marketing Strategy, the Outstanding Contributions to Research in Advertising award from the American Academy of Advertising, Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Elsevier Distinguished Marketing Scholar Award from SMA, and two distinguished doctoral alumnus awards from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland). He has won best article awards for articles in Journal of Marketing (four times), Journal of Marketing Research (twice), Marketing Science, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Advertising, and Journal of Retailing, plus MSI’s Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award (twice), as well as the Berry-AMA Book Prize for the best book in marketing.

He has served as Editor of the Journal of Marketing, and Area Editor for the Journal of Marketing Research and Marketing Science. He is the founder and Chair of the annual Frontiers in Service Conference, and was founding Editor of the Journal of Service Research. He is an Academic Trustee of the Marketing Science Institute and is Vice President for External Relations for the European Marketing Academy.

He has consulted with many leading companies worldwide, including such companies as American Airlines, AT&T, Comcast, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Eli Lilly, FedEx, Hershey, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, NASA, NCR, Nortel, Procter & Gamble, Sears, Sony, Unilever, and USAA. A national class distance runner in his collegiate days, he has been inducted into the DePauw University Athletic Hall of Fame.

Honors and Awards

Lifetime Achievement Awards

AMA Irwin/McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award, 2012. This is the top career honor in academic Marketing.

Paul D. Converse Award, 2012. This award, established by the American Marketing Association, honors “individuals who have made outstanding contributions to marketing scholarship.”

Doctor Honoris Causa (honorary doctorate) from the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland, for “intellectual leadership … in terms of research on services, which have led to the updating, if not the entire rewriting, of contemporary textbooks on management and marketing,” 2010.

Fellow of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science, one of the first 16 people to receive this honor, 2010.

Mahajan Award for Lifetime contribution to Marketing Strategy Research, awarded by the American Marketing Association's Marketing Strategy Special Interest Group, 2010.

PhD Alumni Merit Award, awarded by the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008.

Distinguished University Professor, the highest honor awarded by the University of Maryland, the first business school professor ever to receive this honor, 2008.

CUTCO/Vector Distinguished Marketing Educator Award, awarded by the Academy of Marketing Science, 2007.

Elsevier Distinguished Scholar Award, for “exceptional scholarly achievements,” awarded by the Society for Marketing Advances, 2005.

American Marketing Association Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award, recognizing “the greatest long-term impact on the development of the services discipline,” awarded by the AMA Services Special Interest Group, 2002.

American Marketing Association Gilbert A. Churchill Award, for lifetime achievement in marketing research, awarded by the AMA Marketing Research Special Interest Group, 2000.

Fellow, American Statistical Association, elected "for significant statistical contributions in marketing, advertising, quality management, and psychometrics; and for service to the profession," 1997.

Henry Latané Distinguished Doctoral Alumnus Award, awarded by the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1995.

"Outstanding Contribution to Advertising Research" lifetime achievement award, awarded by the American Academy of Advertising, 1994.

Best Article & Book Awards

Finalist, IJRM Best Article Award, 2012, for the 2011 article, “Will the Frog Change into a Prince?: Predicting Future Customer Profitability,” (with V. Kumar and Rajkumar Venkatesan).

Finalist, Paul E. Green Award, 2011. The award recognizes “the best article in the Journal of Marketing Research that demonstrates the greatest potential to contribute significantly to the practice of marketing research,” for the February 2010 article, “Customer Satisfaction and Consumer Spending Growth,” (with Claes Fornell and Marnik Dekimpe). The award winners are chosen by the Journal of Marketing Research’s Editorial Review Board.

Second Place Winner, 2010, INFORMS Service Science Section Best Paper Award, for “Optimizing Service Productivity” (with Ming-Hui Huang).

Sheth Foundation/Journal of Marketing Award, 2009, for the JM article with the greatest long-term impact for his article "Return on Marketing: Using Customer Equity to Focus Marketing Strategy" (with Kay Lemon and Valarie Zeithaml).

Finalist, William O’Dell Award, 2010. The award recognizes the article that “has made the most
significant, long-run contribution to marketing theory, and/or methodology, and/or practice,” for
the November 2005 Journal of Marketing Research article, “Feature Fatigue: When Product
Capabilities Become Too Much of a Good Thing,” (with Debora Viana Thompson and Rebecca
Hamilton). The award winner is chosen by the Journal of Marketing Research’s Editorial Review
Board.

Donald R. Lehmann Award, 2007, (co-author and dissertation chair), awarded by the American Marketing Association Marketing Research SIG for the Best Dissertation-Based Research Article for the November 2005 Journal of Marketing Research article, “Feature Fatigue: When Product Capabilities Become Too Much of a Good Thing,” (with Debora Viana Thompson and Rebecca Hamilton).

IBM Best Article Award, Journal of Service Research, 2007, for the 2006 article, “The Path to Customer Centricity,” (with Denish Shah, A. Parasuraman, Richard Staelin, and George Day). The award winner is selected by the journal’s editorial review board. 

Highly Commended Paper Award, 2006, awarded for the 2005 International Journal of Service Industry Management article, “The Business Value of E-Government for Small Firms,” (with Debora Thompson and Jeffrey Rhoda). The award, chosen by the journal’s editorial review board, is given to the top four articles of the year.

MSI/H. Paul Root Award, 2005, awarded for the January 2004 Journal of Marketing article, “Return on Marketing: Using Customer Equity to Focus Marketing Strategy,” (with Katherine N. Lemon and Valarie A. Zeithaml). The award recognizes the article that made the greatest contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing. The award winner is chosen by the Journal of Marketing’s Editorial Review Board.

Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award, 2003, awarded for the paper, “Driving Customer Equity: Linking Customer Lifetime Value to Strategic Marketing Decisions” (with Katherine N. Lemon and Valarie A. Zeithaml). Previously known as the MSI Best Paper Award, the Buzzell Award is awarded by the Marketing Science Institute to honor papers that have made a significant contribution to marketing practice and thought. It also serves to signal the kind of writing and research that is of lasting value to corporate marketing executives.

MSI/H. Paul Root Award, 2003, awarded for the October 2002 Journal of Marketing article, “Getting Return on Quality: Revenue Expansion, Cost Reduction or Both?” (with Christine Moorman and Peter Dickson). The award recognizes the article that made the greatest contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing. The award winner is chosen by the Journal of Marketing’s Editorial Review Board.

Berry-AMA Book Prize, 2002, awarded for the book, Driving Customer Equity, co-authored by Valarie A. Zeithaml and Katherine N. Lemon (Free Press 2000). The award is given by the American Marketing Association to the best book in marketing from the most recent three year period. The award recognizes “exceptional marketing books that have set the standard for excellence” and “whose innovative ideas have had significant impact on marketing and related fields.” Anthologies, textbooks and manuals are not eligible for the award. The award is selected by current and past Executive Directors of the Marketing Science Institute.

Marketing Science Institute Best Paper Award, 2002, awarded for the paper, “Getting Returns from Service Quality: Is the Conventional Wisdom Wrong?” (with Christine Moorman and Peter Dickson). The award recognizes papers that have made the most significant contribution to marketing practice and thought. It also signifies the kind of writing and research that is of lasting value to corporate marketing executives.

Donald R. Lehmann Award, 2001, (co-author and dissertation chair), awarded by the American Marketing Association Marketing Research SIG for the Best Dissertation-Based Research Article for the November 2000 Journal of Marketing Research article, "Modeling Fuzzy Data in Qualitative Marketing Research," (with Sajeev Varki and Bruce Cooil).

Finalist, Paul E. Green Award for the Journal of Marketing Research article with the most potential to contribute significantly to the practice of marketing research and research in marketing, for the November 2000 article, "Modeling Fuzzy Data in Qualitative Marketing Research," (with Sajeev Varki and Bruce Cooil). The award is chosen by the Journal of Marketing Research Editorial Board.

Second Place Winner, 1999 William R. Davidson Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Retailing two years previously, for "Customer Delight: Foundations, Findings, and Managerial Insight," (with Richard L. Oliver and Sajeev Varki). The award is chosen by the Journal of Retailing Editorial Board.

Best Services Article Award, AMA Services Special Interest Group, 1998, for "Customer Satisfaction, Productivity, and Profitability: Differences Between Goods and Services," Marketing Science, 1997 (2) (with Eugene W. Anderson and Claes Fornell).

Finalist, John D.C. Little Best Article Award for the best 1997 marketing article in Marketing Science or Management Science, for "Customer Satisfaction, Productivity, and Profitability: Differences Between Goods and Services," (with Eugene W. Anderson and Claes Fornell). The award is chosen by the officers of the INFORMS College on Marketing and the Editorial Review Boards of Marketing Science and Management Science.

Alpha Kappa Psi Foundation Award for the article in the 1995 Journal of Marketing that had the greatest contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing. Awarded for "Return on Quality (ROQ): Making Service Quality Financially Accountable," (with Anthony J. Zahorik and Timothy L. Keiningham). The award is chosen by members of the Journal of Marketing Editorial Review Board.

"Best Article Award for 1993" from the Journal of Retailing for the article, "Customer Satisfaction, Customer Retention, and Market Share," (with Anthony J. Zahorik). The Best Article, selected by a vote of the Editorial Board, is one judged to have contributed most significantly to the development of retailing theory and/or practice.

Winner, Best Article Award in the 1993 Journal of Advertising for the article, "Emotional Feelings and Evaluative Dimensions of Advertising: Are They Related?" (with Patricia Stout). 

Selected Publications

 * Rust, Roland T. and Ming-Hui Huang (2012), "Optimizing Service Productivity," Journal of Marketing, 76 (2), 47-66.

    *Second Place Winner, 2010 INFORMS Service Science Section Best Paper Award.

Arens, Zachary and Roland T. Rust (2012), "The Duality of Decisions and the Case for Impulsiveness Metrics," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40 (3), 468-479.

Rust, Roland T., V. Kumar and Rajkumar Venkatesan (2011), “Will the Frog Change into a Prince?: Predicting Future Customer Profitability,” International Journal of Research in Marketing, 28 (4), 281-294.

*Fornell, Claes, Roland T. Rust and Marnik G. Dekimpe, (2010), “The Effect of Customer Satisfaction on Consumer Spending Growth,” Journal of Marketing Research, 47 (February), 28-35.

    *Finalist, Paul E. Green Award, 2011. The award recognizes “the best article in the Journal
    of Marketing Research that demonstrates the greatest potential to contribute significantly
    to the practice of marketing research.” The award winners are chosen by the Journal of
    Marketing Research’s Editorial Review Board.

*Rust, Roland T. and Ming-Hui Huang, "Optimizing Service Productivity," Journal of Marketing, forthcoming. 

    *Second Place Winner, 2010 INFORMS Service Science Section Best Paper Award.

Rust, Roland T., V. Kumar and Rajkumar Venkatesa, "Will the Frog Change into a Prince?: Predicting Future Customer Profitabiity," International Journal of Research in Marketing, forthcoming.

Arens, Zachary and Roland T. Rust, "The Duality of Decisions and the Case for Impulsiveness Metrics," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, forthcoming.

Huang, Ming-Hui and Roland T. Rust (2011), "Sustainability and Consumption," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39(1), 40-54.

Rand, William and Roland T. Rust (2011), "Agent-Based Modeling in Marketing: Guidelines for Rigor," International Journal of Research in Marketing, 28(3), 181-193.

Fornell, Claes, Roland T. Rust and Marnik G. Dekimpe, (2010), "The Effect of Customer Satisfaction on Consumer Spending Growth," Journal of Marketing Research, 47 (February), 28-35.

Rust, Roland T., Christine Moorman and Gaurav Bhalla, (2010), "Rethinking Marketing," Harvard Business Review, 88(1), 94-101.

Hanssens, Dominique M., Roland T. Rust and Rajendra K. Srivastava, (2009), “Marketing Strategy and Wall Street: Nailing Down Marketing’s Impact,” Journal of Marketing, 73 (6), 115-118.

Chung, Tuck Siong, Roland T. Rust and Michel Wedel (2009), "My Mobile Music: An Adaptive Personalization System for Digital Audio Players," Marketing Science, 28(1), 52-68.

Rust, Roland T. and Tuck Siong Chung (2006), "Marketing Models of Service and Relationships," Marketing Science, 25 (6), 560-580 (followed by seven invited commentaries).

Rust, Roland T., Debora Viana Thompson, and Rebecca Hamilton (2006), "Defeating Feature Fatigue," Harvard Business Review, 84 (2), 98-107. Also published in the Chinese Harvard Business Review, (February 2006), 90-101.

*Thompson, Debora Viana, Rebecca Hamilton and Roland T. Rust, (2005), "Feature Fatigue: When Product Capabilities Become Too Much of a Good Thing," Journal of Marketing Research, 42 (November), 431-442.

     *Donald R. Lehmann Award, 2007, (co-author and dissertation chair), awarded by the American
       Marketing Association Marketing Research SIG for the Best Dissertation-Based Research Article.

Rust, Roland T. and Peter Verhoef, (2005) "Optimizing the Marketing Interventions Mix in Intermediate-Term CRM," Marketing Science, 24(3), 477-489.

Rust, Roland T., Tim Ambler, Gregory S. Carpenter, V. Kumar and Rajendra K. Srivastava, (2004), "Measuring Marketing Productivity: Current Knowledge and Future Directions," Journal of Marketing, 68 (4), 76-89.

Rust, Roland T., Valarie A. Zeithaml and Katherine N. Lemon (2004), "Customer-Centered Brand Management," Harvard Business Review, 82 (9), 110-118.

*Rust, Roland T., Katherine N. Lemon and Valarie A. Zeithaml (2004), "Return on Marketing: Using Customer Equity to Focus Marketing Strategy," Journal of Marketing, 68 (1), 109-127.

*MSI/H. Paul Root Award, 2005. The award recognizes the article that made the greatest contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing. The award winner is chosen by the Journal of Marketing's Editorial Review Board.

* Robert D. Buzzell Best Paper Award, 2003, awarded for an earlier version of the paper, entitled, "Driving Customer Equity: Linking Customer Lifetime Value to Strategic Marketing Decisions. Previously known as the MSI Best Paper Award, the Buzzell Award is awarded by the Marketing Science Institute to honor papers that have made a significant contribution to marketing practice and thought. It also serves to signal the kind of writing and research that is of lasting value to corporate marketing executives.

* Rust, Roland T., Christine Moorman and Peter R. Dickson, (2002), "Getting Return on Quality: Cost Reduction, Revenue Expansion, or Both?" Journal of Marketing, 66 (October), 7-24. Previously presented at the AMA Frontiers in Services Conference, October 2001.

* MSI/H. Paul Root Award, 2003. The award recognizes the article that made the greatest contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing. The award winner is chosen by the Journal of Marketing's Editorial Review Board.

* Marketing Science Institute Best Paper Award, 2002, awarded for an earlier draft of the paper, "Getting Returns from Service Quality: Is the Conventional Wisdom Wrong?" Established in 1993, the award recognizes the authors of papers that have made the most significant contribution to marketing practice and thought. It also signifies the kind of writing and research that is of lasting value to corporate marketing executives. To allow sufficient time to assess the impact of the work, this year's winners were selected from papers issued in 2000.

* Varki, Sajeev, Bruce Cooil, and Roland T. Rust, (2000), "Modeling Fuzzy Data in Qualitative Marketing Research," Journal of Marketing Research, 37 (November), 480-499.

* Winner, Donald R. Lehmann Award (co-author and dissertation advisor) for the outstanding dissertation-based article in marketing research.

* Finalist, Paul E. Green Award for the Journal of Marketing Research article with the most potential to contribute significantly to the practice of marketing research and research in marketing. The award is chosen by the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Marketing Research.

Simester, Duncan I., John R. Hauser, Birger Wernerfelt, and Roland T. Rust, (2000), "Implementing Quality Improvement Programs Designed to Enhance Customer Satisfaction: Quasi-experiments in the U.S. and Spain," Journal of Marketing Research, 37 (February), 102-112 (2000).

Moorman, Christine and Roland T. Rust, (1999), "The Role of Marketing," Journal of Marketing, JM/MSI Special Issue on Fundamental Issues in Marketing, 63 (Special Issue), 180-197.

Rust, Roland T., J. Jeffrey Inman, Jianmin Jia, and Anthony Zahorik, (1999), "What You Don't Know About Customer-Perceived Quality: The Role of Customer Expectation Distributions," Marketing Science, 18 (1), 77-92. Also summarized in Scientific American.

* Anderson, Eugene W., Claes Fornell, and Roland T. Rust, (1997), "Customer Satisfaction, Productivity, and Profitability: Differences Between Goods and Services," Marketing Science, (2), 129-145.

* Best Services Article Award of 1997, AMA Services Special Interest Group.

* Finalist, John D.C. Little Best Article Award for the best 1997 marketing article in Marketing Science or Management Science. The award is chosen by the officers of the INFORMS College on Marketing and the Editorial Review Boards of Marketing Science and Management Science.

Cooil, Bruce and Roland T. Rust, (1995), "General Estimators for the Reliability of Qualitative Data," Psychometrika, 60 (June) 199-220. Previously presented at the ASA Joint Statistical meetings, August 1994.

* Rust, Roland T., Anthony J. Zahorik, and Timothy L. Keiningham, (1995), "Return on Quality (ROQ): Making Service Quality Financially Accountable," Journal of Marketing, 59 (April) 58-70. Previously presented at the AMA Frontiers in Services Conference, October 1993.

* Winner of the Alpha Kappa Psi Foundation Award for the 1995 article in the Journal of Marketing that had the greatest contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing.

Rust, Roland T., Duncan Simester, Roderick J. Brodie, and V. Nilikant, (1995), "Model Selection Criteria: An Investigation of Relative Accuracy, Posterior Probabilities, and Combinations of Criteria," Management Science, 41 (February) 222-233.

Rust, Roland T. and Naveen Donthu, (1995), "Capturing Geographically Localized Misspecification Error in Retail Store Choice Models," Journal of Marketing Research, (February), 103-110.

Cooil, Bruce and Roland T. Rust, (1994), "Reliability and Expected Loss: A Unifying Principle," Psychometrika, 59 (June), 203-216.

Rust, Roland T. and Bruce Cooil, (1994), "Reliability Measures for Qualitative Data: Theory and Implications," Journal of Marketing Research, 31 (February), 1-14.

Rust, Roland T., Donald R. Lehmann, and John U. Farley, (1990), "Estimating Publication Bias in Meta-Analysis," Journal of Marketing Research, (May) 220-226.

Fornell, Claes and Roland T. Rust, (1989), "Incorporating Prior Theory in Covariance Structure Analysis: A Bayesian Approach," Psychometrika, (June), 249-259.

Donthu, Naveen and Roland T. Rust, (1989), "Estimating Geographic Customer Densities Using Kernel Density Estimation," Marketing Science, (Spring), 191-203.

Rust, Roland T., (1988), "Flexible Regression," Journal of Marketing Research, (February), 10-24.

Rust, Roland T. and David C. Schmittlein, (1985), "A Bayesian Cross-Validated Likelihood Method for Comparing Alternative Specifications of Quantitative Models," Marketing Science, (Winter), 20-40.

Rust, Roland T. and Mark I. Alpert, (1984), "An Audience Flow Model of Television Viewing Choice," Marketing Science, (Spring), 113-124.

Rust, Roland T. and Robert P. Leone, (1984), "The Mixed Media Dirichlet Multinomial Distribution: A Model for Evaluating Television-Magazine Advertising Schedules," Journal of Marketing Research, (February) 89-99.

Huff, David L. and Roland T. Rust, (1984), "Measuring the Congruence of Market Areas," Journal of Marketing, (Winter), 68-74.

Rust, Roland T. and Elizabeth O. Bornman, (1982), "Distribution-Free Methods of Approximating Nonlinear Marketing Relationships," Journal of Marketing Research, (August), 372-374.

Rust, Roland T. and Jay E. Klompmaker, (1981), "Improving the Estimation Procedure for the Beta Binomial TV Exposure Model," Journal of Marketing Research, (November), 442-448.

Headen, Robert S., Jay E. Klompmaker, and Roland T. Rust, (1979), "The Duplication of Viewing Law and Television Media Schedule Evaluation," Journal of Marketing Research, (August), 33-340.

Editorships

Books