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Reimagining marketing doctoral programs

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Abstract

In this essay, my focus is on one critically important aspect of marketing doctoral programs: theory development. Theory animates everything we do in our discipline. Therefore, it is imperative that doctoral programs place theory at the heart of curriculum that shapes the thinking, priorities, and research efforts of our new scholars. Unfortunately, in many doctoral programs, this does not happen. To spur a conversation on this critically important issue in our discipline, I suggest five initiatives that seek to reimagine the content and structure of marketing doctoral programs. These initiatives are: (1) Add marketing to marketing doctoral programs; (2) Create a dedicated space in the curriculum for theory construction; (3) Restructure the sequence of doctoral seminars; (4) Make a foundational essay mandatory in dissertations; and (5) Change the culture of marketing doctoral programs.

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Notes

  1. There are a number of excellent resources in the literature focusing on the meaning of the term “theory”—what it connotes and scholarly activities involved in its development (see, e.g., Hunt 1991; MacInnis 2011; Sutton and Staw 1995; Zaltman et al. 1982). These writings generally view theory as a set of structured statements that purport to explain a focal phenomenon, can be empirically verified, and have some law-like generalizations.

  2. Two primary criteria guided the selection of these case studies: my familiarity with them and their potential to provide more general insights about doctoral programs. The case studies are illustrative. There are a number of other exemplary doctoral programs, in the United States and elsewhere, that could also have served as a basis for highlighting characteristics that make the doctoral experience distinctive and impactful.

  3. In this section, I rely on terminology (e.g., seminars) that is used frequently in the United States but may be less common in other countries. It is also worth noting that there can be substantial variation across countries in terms of the nature of formal coursework. Formal coursework is required in most doctoral programs in the United States, but this is not the case in Europe and other regions of the world. Despite these variations, the argument made in this section—that sequence of learning in doctoral programs needs rethinking—is applicable broadly in all doctoral programs.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Editor, Steve Vargo, for the invitation to develop this article. Ajay Kohli, Bernie Jaworski, and Jerry Zaltman provided helpful comments on an earlier draft.

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  1. Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA

    Manjit S. Yadav

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Correspondence to Manjit S. Yadav.

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Yadav, M.S. Reimagining marketing doctoral programs. AMS Rev 10, 56–64 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13162-020-00169-6

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