If there were a Billboard Top 40 for the most popular academic studies, DePaul Associate Professor of Marketing Albert M. Muñiz, Jr. would be a business research rock star.

A 2001 study coauthored by Muñiz has topped the academic charts this spring as the most cited research paper in the field of business and economics worldwide, according to Thomson Scientific. The Philadelphia-based firm tracks research trends in 11,000 academic journals and issues a bi-monthly list of the most cited papers in 22 disciplines.

Muñiz and coauthor Thomas C. O’Guinn, a marketing professor with the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, coined the phrase “brand community” in the study of the same name to describe consumers that form communities around their devotion to a particular brand. The research, which began as Muñiz’ doctoral dissertation at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, was published in the March 2001 edition of the Journal of Consumer Research.

“I think the reason this research is so highly cited is that it was the first paper to explicitly acknowledge the social nature of certain consumer brands,” Muñiz said. “Prior to that, the field of consumer research viewed brands rather narrowly as summations of attitudes.”

The groundbreaking article explored non-geographically bound communities formed among admirers of brands, such as Apple computers, Saab cars and Ford Brancos, and found that these communities operate in a manner similar to traditional, face-to-face communities.

Members of these communities feel a sense of commonality through their use of the brand and a responsibility to share information about problems, common repairs and support issues. They also feel compelled to relate brand narratives, such as “how the Saab saved my life,” Muñiz explained.

“Our work demonstrates that humans, as social beings, find and create community where they will. Sometimes, they will find it around a branded good. A lot of cultural criticism has lamented the loss of community associated with modernity. This paper suggests that community endures and emerges in different places, with different idioms and forms,” Muñiz and O’Guinn said in joint response to a Thomson Scientific request for them to assess the impact of their research, which will be featured in the May 1 online edition of Thomson’s “Fast Moving Fronts” in research.

Although the academic community initially reacted with skepticism towards Muñiz and O’Guinn’s findings, their journal article has since gained acceptance and attracted 73 citations in works by other scholars who are advancing the research into consumption and brand communities.

Muñiz and O’Guinn continue to build on their pioneering work. Muñiz is currently researching brand community and brand co-creation. “Consumers, particularly those ensconced in cohesive brand communities, can be quite proficient in their production of brand-related content. They are capable of brand innovation, support and promotion, often challenging the marketer in terms of success and effectiveness,” Muñiz said. O’Guinn has begun to study politicization of brands and their communities.