University Advancement

Public Relations and Strategic Communications

NEWS RELEASE

CSUN Marketing Professor Receives National Honors

(NORTHRIDGE, Calif., June 12, 2007) — Cal State Northridge marketing professor Franck Vigneron, director of CSUN’s Wells Fargo Center for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, has received top honors from the Academy of Marketing Science Review (AMSR) for a research paper that describes what motivates people to consume luxury brands.

Vigneron’s paper, "A Review and a Conceptual Framework for Prestige-Seeking Consumer Behavior," won the award for best paper of the decade.

The AMSR is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes high quality conceptual and measurement articles in the areas of marketing and consumer behavior. Vigneron’s paper, which was co-authored by marketing professor Lester Johnson of the Melbourne Business School in Australia, was pushed in the AMSR in 1999 and was part of a set of papers nominated for the ten-year period of 1997 to 2006.

The journal was able to track the exact number of visits each paper received on its Web site during that ten-year period. AMSR ranked the top ten papers in terms of active reading. The three best papers were selected by a panel of experts in marketing research, with Vigneron receiving top honors for the best paper during the ten-year publication period.

Cal State Northridge’s College of Business and Economics is home to several nationally recognized programs where students gain valuable hands-on experience working alongside faculty and business professionals in a variety of areas. Among the college’s acclaimed programs is the Wells Fargo Center for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, which provides business students the opportunity to work on consulting projects with local business and community leaders.