For V. Kumar, one of the most positive outcomes of receiving Brock University’s 2024 Distinguished Research and Creative Activity Award is the ability to hire more students as research assistants.

“It’s a double benefit,” says the Professor of Marketing and Goodman Academic Industry Partnership Professor. “The research assistants get supported to complete their program of education, and I get help with my specific research areas.”

For example, one of his research assistants will be studying how generative artificial intelligence can be used to spot fake reviews of hotels, sites, activities and other services in the travel and tourism industry.

“Online reviews can be used as a tool to victimize hosts, who have no control of these postings,” says Kumar. “This research aims to catch and expose those behind the fake reviews to help the industry stop this behaviour.”

Technology is one of Kumar’s many research areas, which include financial services, telecommunications, retail and hospitality.

Through his work, he develops models that help businesses solve problems by focusing on three elements: rigour, relevance and impact.

Rigour involves anticipating all possible challenges and outcomes so that the planned solution to the problem is as “foolproof” as possible, says Kumar.

The model also needs to be relevant to the business so that key stakeholders are engaged, and the research should have some kind of impact on businesses, other key stakeholders, the community and society at large, he says.

He has worked with dozens of Fortune 500 and international corporations to successfully solve a variety of problems. With this latest award, Kumar says he aims to establish relationships with Canadian companies to find solutions to their challenges using his modelling approach.

Kumar has published more than 300 scholarly papers in top journals and more than 30 books, earning more than 25 Canadian, American and international research and teaching excellence awards.

“Dr. Kumar’s research is globally recognized for its interdisciplinarity and integration of multiple theoretical perspectives, as well as its great practical relevance,” says Acting Vice-President, Research Michelle McGinn.

McGinn notes Kumar, who has mentored more than 40 doctoral students and several graduate students worldwide, has had the American Marketing Association’s V. Kumar Doctoral Student Mentorship Award named in his honour.

“Dr. Kumar’s outstanding publishing record and passion for investing skills and knowledge into the next generation are two of many accomplishments that have earned him this prestigious Brock award,” says McGinn.

The Distinguished Research and Creative Activity Award, valued at $10,000, is co-funded by the Office of the Vice-President Research and the Brock University Faculty Association to recognize excellence in research, scholarly activity, and creative performance and contributions toward the training or mentoring of future scholars.

Other highlights of Kumar’s career include:

• Being named by SAGE publications as one of eight “Marketing Legends”
• Being inducted to the inaugural class of the United States Analytics Hall of Fame in 2019
• Receiving 23 lifetime achievement awards from professional associations such as the American Marketing Association
• Appearing repeatedly on the Stanford University’s list of the world’s top two per cent of scientists with the most citations
• Being ranked among the top scholars by Research.com

Kumar says he’s humbled to be receiving the prestigious Distinguished Research and Creative Activity Award, which is given at the University level.

“I want to use this award to give back to the University,” he says. “I look forward to the collaborative research that I can set up at the University with the departments of Computer Science, Psychology, Sociology and other partners.”