390013 DK PhD-M: Marketing Theory (2017S)

As this is a doctoral seminar, students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned material for that week, provide commentary on it, and participate in creative debate. The purpose of this format is to help students develop insights that will lead to the cross-fertilization of ideas and the creation of new research questions. This is a fundamental skill that needs to be developed during the doctoral program. Students are also expected to write critiques of the articles they will be reading. These critiques should speak to: the purpose of the reading and whether and to what extent the authors have achieved that purpose; the solidity of the theoretical arguments presented and their merit in constructing the hypotheses; research and statistical methods used and their application merit; and the results of the research and its potential contributions to theory extension and managerial practice. This is a fundamental skill that needs to be developed in a doctoral program; thus, it will constitute 30% of the course grade.
Students are also expected to prepare a paper, initially targeting any of the national/international conferences of the AMA, AIB, EIBA, EMAC, or the ACR, but planned for later submission to a reputable journal. My expectation is that this will be a conceptual paper, critically reviewing the literature on a given topic, such as consumer cosmopolitanism, and offering propositions for future research. It may also be a critical review of a significant research stream in marketing, such as the work on consumer value structures, and offer a synthesis of that stream and suggest ideas for its future development. This, too, is a fundamental skill one needs to develop; thus, it will constitute 50 % of the course grade.
Finally, students are expected to complete a take-home Course Exam covering the material discussed during the semester. The purpose of this assignment is to help students synthesize what they have learned throughout the semester into an integrated piece. It will be distributed at the end of the seminar and students will have 4 weeks in which to complete it. This will be worth 20% of the seminar grade.