Subhash Jha - Department of Marketing

Subhash Jha

Associate Professor | George Johnson Research Fellow in Marketing

Dr. Subhash Jha is an associate professor of Marketing and the George Johnson Research Fellow in Marketing at the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis. Before joining the University of Memphis in Fall 2020, he served as an assistant professor of marketing for five years at the Indian Institute of Management Udaipur and Purdue University Northwest. He holds Ph.D. degrees in Marketing from the University of Memphis and IBS-Hyderabad.

Dr. Jha’s research examines consumer decision-making in retail and service settings, with a focus on how subtle cues, from sensory and haptic elements of the environment to frontline employee interactions and emerging technologies, shape customer perceptions, trust, and behavior. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including the Journal of Retailing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, and Psychology & Marketing, and his work has received over 2000 citations. His research has also been featured in Harvard Business Review.

Dr. Jha is also an active contributor to externally funded, community-focused research. As Principal Investigator, he has secured state and federal grants totaling close to $2 million, and as Co-Principal Investigator, more than $3 million, supporting projects on distracted and impaired driving, electric vehicle adoption, and economic development in Tennessee.

He serves on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Retailing, Journal of Consumer Psychology and Journal of Business Research. His honors include the Tigers Ascending to Excellence Award (2025), multiple FCBE Best Paper Awards (2021, 2023, 2025, 2026), and the Graduate Engaged Creative Teaching Excellence Award (2023). He has also advised and mentored numerous doctoral students who now hold faculty positions at universities across the United States.

2026: Best Paper Award, Fogelman College of Business and Economics
2026: Undergraduate Creative Teaching Award
2025: Tigers Ascending to Excellence Award, The University of Memphis
2025: Best Paper Award, Fogelman College of Business and Economics
2023–2026: George Johnson Research Fellowship Award
2023: Best Paper Award, Fogelman College of Business and Economics
2023: Graduate Engaged Creative Teaching Excellence Award
2021: Best Paper Award, Fogelman College of Business and Economics
2020: Teddy Jacobi Scholarship, Purdue University Northwest
2018: Highly Commended Paper, Emerald Literati Awards for Excellence (European Journal of Marketing)
2017: Doctoral Fellow, AMA-Sheth Doctoral Consortium
2017: William O. Bearden Doctoral Student Research Runner-Up Award, Southeast Marketing Symposium

Sample Publications

Journal of Retailing

Jha, S., Balaji, M.S., Guha, A., Biswas, A., See-To, E.W.K., & Ravula, P. (2025). The effect of recommendation display position on review persuasiveness: Moderating roles of temporal distance, affect and valence. Journal of Retailing (in press).
Jha, S., Balaji, M.S., & Peck, J. (2023). Conveying product weight in digital media using a hand image. Journal of Retailing, 99(3), 353–369.
Bhattacharyya, A., Jha, S., Guha, A., & Biswas, A. (2023). Should firms display the sale price using larger font? Journal of Retailing, 99(1), 17–25.
Ravula, P., Jha, S., & Biswas, A. (2022). Relative persuasiveness of repurchase intentions and recommendations in online reviews. Journal of Retailing, 98(4), 724–740.
Jha, S., Balaji, M.S., Peck, J., Oakley, J., & Deitz, G.D. (2020). Effects of environmental haptic cues on consumer perceptions of retailer warmth and competence. Journal of Retailing, 96(4), 590–605.
Mukherjee, A., Jha, S., & Smith, R.J. (2017). Regular price $299 pre-order price $199: Price promotion for a pre-ordered product and the moderating role of temporal orientation. Journal of Retailing, 93(2), 201–211.
Krishnan, B.C., Dutta, S., & Jha, S. (2013). Effectiveness of exaggerated advertised reference prices: The role of decision time pressure. Journal of Retailing, 89(1), 105–113.

Journal of Consumer Psychology

Jha, S., Guha, A., Biswas, A., & Guari, D. (2024). Is 7.7% better than 8%? The role of precise discount framing in small discounts. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 34(2), 343–350.

Journal of Service Research

Jha, S., Deitz, G.D., Babakus, E., & Yavas, U. (2013). The role of corporate image for quality in the formation of attitudinal service loyalty. Journal of Service Research, 16(2), 155–170.

Journal of Business Research

Zhang, J., Balaji, M.S., Luo, J., & Jha, S. (2022). Effectiveness of product recommendation framing on online retail platforms. Journal of Business Research, 153, 185–197.
Balaji, M.S., Jiang, Y., & Jha, S. (2021). Nanoinfluencer marketing: How message features affect credibility and behavioral intentions. Journal of Business Research, 136, 293–304.
Balaji, M.S., Jiang, Y., Singh, G., & Jha, S. (2020). Letting go or getting back: How organization culture shapes frontline employee response to customer incivility. Journal of Business Research, 111, 1–11.
Myers, S., Deitz, G.D., Huhmann, B., Jha, S., & Tatara, J.H. (2020). Attention to taboo advertising: An eye-tracking study of differences in attention to overall and brand-related content. Journal of Business Research, 111, 176–186.
Balaji, M.S., Jha, S., Sengupta, A.S., & Krishnan, B.C. (2018). Service recovery with cynical customers: Role of negative inferred motive and customer participation in service recovery. Journal of Business Research, 86, 109–118.

European Journal of Marketing

Jha, S., Balaji, M.S., Yavas, U., & Babakus, E. (2017). Effects of frontline employee role overload on customer responses and sales performance: Moderator and mediators. European Journal of Marketing, 51(2), 282–303. (Highly Commended Paper, 2018 Emerald Literati Awards)

Industrial Marketing Management

Jha, S., Balaji, M.S., Ranjan, K.R., & Sharma, A. (2018). Effect of service-related resources on employee and customer outcomes in trade shows. Industrial Marketing Management, 76, 48–59.
Paesbrugghe, B., Rangarajan, D., Sharma, A., Syam, N., & Jha, S. (2017). Purchasing-driven sales: Matching sales strategies to the evolution of the purchasing function. Industrial Marketing Management, 62, 171–184.

Select Research Grants

Total funding: close to $2 million as Principal Investigator and over $3 million as Co-Principal Investigator.

PI, TNGO 2.0 (2025–2026), Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, $500,000.
Co-PI, Impaired Driving Behavior (2025–2026), Tennessee Highway Safety Office, $385,000.
PI, Comparative Analysis of Reduced Distracted Driving Among Shelby County Adolescents (2023–2025), Tennessee Highway Safety Office, $192,121.97.
PI, Electric Vehicles: Awareness and Adoption (2024–2025), BlueOval SK, $150,000.
PI, Comparative Analysis of Reduced Distracted Driving Among Shelby County Adolescents (2023–2024), Tennessee Highway Safety Office, $168,143.97. Completed.
PI, Education Program to Reduce Distracted Driving Among Shelby County Adolescents (2022–2023), Tennessee Highway Safety Office, $77,108.40. Completed.

Editorial Review Board

2026–Present: Journal of Retailing
2025–Present: Journal of Consumer Psychology
2024–Present: Journal of Business Research

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