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Ph.D in Marketing

Program Overview

The mission of the Temple Doctoral program in Marketing should be to prepare students for top-level research careers. Our program is designed to produce students able to perform top-quality substantive research and to prepare students to be competent, up-to-date educators.Our objective is to produce excellent graduates capable of successfully performing in the top research institutions. If your goal is to simply teach at a small regional or local institution, then this program is not for you.

Objective:

The outcome based objectives of our program are to develop and produce students:

  • Who possess adequate methodological rigor
  • Who possess ability to identify and pursue high quality, publishable research
  • Whose training and research are grounded in an understanding of managers' concerns
  • Who are capable of competently performing all aspects of the research process, from idea generation and selection to publication
  • Who are methodologically and conceptually prepared to educate undergraduate, MBA, and Ph. D. students well into the 21st century

Admission

The following components are considered in the admissions decision.

  • Academic capabilities - Some combination of GMAT or GRE scores and grade point average are considered.
  • Communications capabilities - A 600 hundred score on the TOEFL is required.
  • Recommendations - Recommendations from previous professors in both undergraduate and graduate programs and from work supervisors are required.
  • A personal interview is strongly recommended in order:
    • To ensure that the student fully understands the nature of the commitment associated with entry into a Ph. D. program in general and a marketing Ph. D. program in particular
    • To offer the department the opportunity to further examine the candidates credentials and interests.

Characteristic of the Optimal Student:

The typical student for the marketing Ph. D. will be highly motivated, intellectually creative, and hard working. An interest in and an ability to carry out excellent research should also be important. All students are expected to enter the program on a full time basis (although a non-matriculation option will be to allow students who are unsure of their commitment to take a few courses prior to admission to the program in order to clarify their objectives).

Degree Completion Requirements

  • Course Work - Completion of 15 courses to be divided as described in a subsequent section.
  • Statistics Examinations - Students must past comprehensive examinations in Statistics at the conclusion of their first year.
  • Comprehensive Examinations - Students must complete a Marketing comprehensive examinations during their residency. This examination, the major field examination, must be taken after completion of the third year of course work. The emphasis in this examination will be on integration of knowledge over the entire discipline of marketing.
  • Presentation of research paper - Before they can "sit" for the major field examination at the end of the third year of course work, students must have successfully presented a paper to the department. This presentation must be scheduled with the marketing department administrative assistant at least one month prior to its scheduled date.
  • Research paper - The paper upon which the presentation is based or another paper must be judged acceptable by designated representatives of the marketing department.
  • Teaching - Students must have taught at least one course at an acceptable level of performance.
  • Dissertation - Students must have proposed and defended a complete publishable quality dissertation.

Program Requirements

Course requirements for the Ph. D. in Marketing are divided into four categories. Precise outcome objectives should be set for each of these categories by the Ph. D. committee.

  • Core requirements - Students must complete a three course core sequence composed of Modern Management Theories (BA9001), Foundations in Managerial Economics, (BA9002), and Scientific Inquiry in Management Research (BA9003).
  • Statistics requirements - Students must complete four statistics courses. There are two sequences. Students are to select from theses in consultation with the Ph. D. adviser in order to best meet the student's methodological interests.
  • Minor - Students must complete three additional courses in a discipline related to Marketing. Disciplines are expected to be base disciplines such as Psychology, Sociology, Economics, Statistics, and Anthropology. However, if the student makes a well grounded request, other disciplines such as Management, International Business or Management Science and Operations Management will be considered acceptable.
  • Marketing - Students must complete the courses listed below.

Marketing Ph. D. Level Courses

  • Seminar in Marketing Theory Development (BA742) - This course examines the philosophical underpinnings of theories and theory development. It focuses on how theoretical and conceptual models are developed to explain or predict marketing phenomena. In addition, it exposes students to the literature in marketing on theory and marketing theory
  • Seminar in Behavioral Research in Marketing (BA743) - This course is an introduction to research in marketing that is based on the behavioral social science disciplines, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Behavioral Decision Research. Emphasis will be on the domain of consumer and buyer behavior, but the emerging domains of managerial and sales person behavior will also be examined to a lesser degree. Although its foci will be on psychology based theorization and on consumer behavior applications, the course will also provide a broad introduction to the whole gamut of behavioral research in marketing. By design this course is both an introduction to existing behavioral research in marketing and to doing behavioral research in marketing. Substantive material will focus on current research approaches, but there will also be some examination of historical approaches
  • Seminar in Quantitative Research in Marketing (BA744) - This course is an introduction to research in marketing that is based on the quantitative disciplines, Economics, Operations Research, and Statistics. The course will have two purposes, to introduce students to current quantitatively based research in marketing and, more importantly, to introduce students to how to do quantitatively based research in marketing
  • Seminar in Selected Topics in Marketing (BA745) - This course builds on the previous courses, theory development, behavioral research, and quantitative research, to examine substantive areas in marketing. Topic areas will include: segmentation, strategy, advertising, promotion, pricing, product development and management, distribution channels, sales force, and retailing. As such, this course is designed to offer students exposure to the substantive issues that marketing theoreticians are grappling with and an opportunity to delve more deeply into one or more areas of special interest

For more information about this program visit the Fox School Graduate Programs website.

 

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