The course materials consist of articles and this sets specific needs for students on how to prepare for

the exam. First, the statistics in the articles are less important than the content of the articles in terms of research question, theories, contributions and new insights, strengths and weaknesses, and the key findings. We will not ask for specific hypotheses and whether they are supported or not but students should be able to highlight the key findings of the article and discuss what they mean to organizations or consumers. Also what the theories mean and when theories or expectations were not supported.

Week Summaries
Week 1: Overview marketing theory and research themes Week 2: Social influence in consumer behavior Week 3: Online (social) marketing Week 4: Guest speaker - tba Week 5: Signal theory and quality perception Week 6: Marketing strategy developments and recap of the course
For each article students should answer the following questions: What is the (main) research question in this article? What is the context of this question and why is it relevant? How do they answer the question: is it a conceptual paper or empirical? Are the hypotheses exploring or testing? Qualitative research or quantitative? Experimental design or descriptive? What are the (main) conclusions of this article, what does it add to our knowledge? What are the limitations of this study/what are areas for new research? Then the article should be read again and the following questions prepared for each article: What strikes you about this paper? What is different, interesting, inspiring or remarkable to you? What new research question(s) does the paper evoke? What would be the relevance of this question(s)? If applicable: compare the paper to other papers on the same topic: how do they differ? Why? Compare content and/or methodology: Is one paper better than the other?

Week 1: Overview marketing theory and research themes

Narver and Slater (1990) The effect of a market orientation on business profitability What is the (main) research question in this article? Is there a valid measure of market orientation? What is the context of this question and why is it relevant? Business performance is affected by market orientation, but there has been no valid measure of market orientation and hence no systematic analysis of its effect on businesss performance. How do they answer the question: is it a conceptual paper or empirical? Empirical Are the hypotheses exploring or testing? Testing Qualitative research or quantitative? Quantitative Experimental design or descriptive? Experimental design What are the (main) conclusions of this article, what does it add to our knowledge? The authors report the development of a valid measure of market orientation and analyze its effect on profitability. The aspects of market orientation are: Customer orientation (market information acquisition and dissemination) Competitor orientation (market information acquisition and dissemination) Interfunctional Coordination (coordinated creation of customer value, typically involving more than the marketing department) The authors hypothesize that market orientation is a one-dimension construct consisting of three behavioral components and two decision criteria, a long-term focus and a profit objective. No conclusions can be drawn on the decision criteria because of insufficient reliability. Market orientation is an important determinant of profitability. Relative costs and market growth appear also to be important determinants in profitability (control variables). What are the limitations of this study/what are areas for new research? Multiple corporations as the sample frame, expanded sample of industries. Market orientation refers to the orientation of organizational culture, organizational structure and organizational processes towards the firms customers and competitors. It refers to the degree to which the product offering of the firm and the customerrelated behavior of the firm correspond to customer needs and competitive requirements External customer orientation Competitor orientation Internal customer orientation Specific contents of market orientation differ depending on the various functional departments involved. Potential conflicts between functional department and Marketing and Sales arise that have to be solved to ensure the companys success.

What strikes you about this paper? What is different, interesting, inspiring or remarkable to you? I think it is remarkable that for more than three decades there has been research about the relationship between business performance and marketing orientation, but that there has been no valid measure of a marketing orientation. What new research question(s) does the paper evoke? What would be the relevance of this question(s)? Can the research be expanded to other types of industries? While marketing orientation is an important determinant of business performance it is interesting for other industries. If applicable: compare the paper to other papers on the same topic: how do they differ? Why? Compare content and/or methodology: Is one paper better than the other? Rust et al. (2004) Measuring Marketing Productivity: Current Knowledge and Future Directions What is the (main) research question in this article? How to measure marketing productivity? What is the context of this question and why is it relevant? For too long, marketers have not been held accountable for showing how marketing expenditures add to shareholder value. As time has gone by, this lack of accountability has undermined marketers credibility, threatened the standing of the marketing function within the firm. How do they answer the question: is it a conceptual paper or empirical? Conceptual Are the hypotheses exploring or testing? Exploring Qualitative research or quantitative? Experimental design or descriptive? Descriptive What are the (main) conclusions of this article, what does it add to our knowledge? This article proposes a broad framework for assessing marketing productivity (SEE FIGURE 1). Existing financial metrics to measure marketing productivity have proved inadequate, leading to the development and increasing use of nonfinancial metrics. Considerable progress has been made in developing nonfinancial measures of marketing assets. The authors attempted to bring such methods and measures together in a unified framework and to present them as part of a comprehensive view to describe marketing expenditures on sales, profit, and shareholder value. Only two systems address the important issue of linking short- and long-term outcomes: financial and nonfinancial. The first is based on forecasting long-term outcomes and discounting cash flow (e.g., customer equity). The second represents the future in the state of the marketing asset today. What are the limitations of this study/what are areas for new research? strategies and tactics, brand equity, customer equity, market impact, financial impact, the environment, and competition What strikes you about this paper? What is different, interesting, inspiring or remarkable to you? I think it is interesting to see how strategies have impact on all of the other factors in the chain of marketing productivity. What new research question(s) does the paper evoke? What would be the relevance of this question(s)?

What are other factors than infuence the value of the firm? If applicable: compare the paper to other papers on the same topic: how do they differ? Why? Compare content and/or methodology: Is one paper better than the other? Achrol and Kotler (2011), Frontiers of the marketing paradigm in the third millennium What is the (main) research question in this article? How can we explain the emerging field of marketing? What is the context of this question and why is it relevant? There has been a ranging discussion of marketings future possibilities. It is important to know what the new marketing horizon portend for key marketing stakeholders. How do they answer the question: is it a conceptual paper or empirical? Conceptual paper Are the hypotheses exploring or testing? Qualitative research or quantitative? Experimental design or descriptive? Descriptive What are the (main) conclusions of this article, what does it add to our knowledge? The authors develop a three-tiered explanation of the emerging field of marketing its: (1) subphenomena (consumer experiences (fundamental domain of relevant theory) and sensory systems (fundamental bases of explanation)) (2) phenomena (marketing networks: bringing production and consumption close together) (3) superphenomena (sustainability (marketing encourages rapid consumption of limited natural resources) and poverty (the poor do not constitute a marketable segment) Managerial implications: Managers need to understand the nature and theory of network organization There is a new consumption philosophy of customer care. Customer care means acting on behalf of the customer and his/her long-term interests. Growth is not a panacea in the new marketing. Micro marketing and distributed production models will be prominent. The new marketing will demand a new cost accounting featuring nature costing. What are the limitations of this study/what are areas for new research? It is a conceptual paper. It is difficult to predict the future, so more research need to be done for marketings future possibilities. What strikes you about this paper? What is different, interesting, inspiring or remarkable to you? I think it is interesting to see how the authors think marketing is changing in the future. What new research question(s) does the paper evoke? What would be the relevance of this question(s)? For example: what will be the developments in nanotechnology? Nanotechnology can change the nature of the world and human experiences as we know them.

If applicable: compare the paper to other papers on the same topic: how do they differ? Why? Compare content and/or methodology: Is one paper better than the other? Jagdish (2011), Impact of emerging markets on marketing: rethinking existing perspectives and practices What is the (main) research question in this article? What is the impact of emerging markets on marketing? What is the context of this question and why is it relevant? The rise of emerging markets is not only inevitable, it will have a disruptive impact on marketing practice and theory as we know it today. The sheer size of consumer markets in countries such as China and India, combined with their aspirations and entrepreneurship, will shift emerging markets from the periphery to the core of global competition, with home-field advantages going to multinationals from these emerging markets. It is already happening across diverse industries, such as beer, steel, appliances, and cell phone services. It will also happen in consumer electronics, automobiles, personal computers, and information and communication infrastructure industries. How do they answer the question: is it a conceptual paper or empirical? Emperical Are the hypotheses exploring or testing? Testing Qualitative research or quantitative? Experimental design or descriptive? Descriptive What are the (main) conclusions of this article, what does it add to our knowledge The core idea of this article is that five key characteristics market heterogeneity (emerging markets tend to have very large variance relative to the mean across almost all products and services) sociopolitical governance (emerging markets tend to have enormous influence of sociopolitical institutions) unbranded competition (as much as 60% of consumption in emerging markets so far has been for unbranded products and services) chronic shortage of resources (emerging markets tend to have a chronic shortage of resources in production, exchange, and consumption) inadequate infrastructure (infrastructure includes not only physical roads, logistics, and storage but also market trans- action enablers, such as point-of-sale terminals, and basic banking functions, let alone credit cards) of emerging markets are radically different from the traditional industrialized capitalist society, and they will require us to rethink the core assumptions of marketing, such as market orientation, market segmentation, and differential advantage. To accommodate these characteristics, we must rethink the marketing perspective (e.g., from differential advantage to market aggregation and standardization) and the core guiding strategy concepts (e.g., from market orientation to market development). Similarly, we must rethink issues of public policy (e.g., from compliance and crisis driven to purpose driven) and the marketing practice (e.g., from glocalization to fusion marketing). (SEE TABLE 1) What are the limitations of this study/what are areas for new research? Comparative empirical research on the actual behavior of customers using marketing analytics. For example, do the consumers in emerging markets buy and use cell phones in different ways than consumers in advanced countries? A second area

equally important is theory development. A third area of research is marketing policy. A fourth area of research in marketing is the fusion of existing perspectives with alternative perspectives generated by the context. What strikes you about this paper? What is different, interesting, inspiring or remarkable to you? It is interesting to see that emerging markets, with its unique characteristics, may reqcuire some rethinking. What new research question(s) does the paper evoke? What would be the relevance of this question(s)? Do consumers in emerging markets buy and use products in different ways than consumers in advances countries? If applicable: compare the paper to other papers on the same topic: how do they differ? Why? Compare content and/or methodology: Is one paper better than the other?