PhD Marketing Courses
MKTG 641. Behavioral Research in Marketing I
This course prepares the student to do empirical behavioral research on consumer and managerial behavior and other behavioral issues. It will cover some of the key concepts, principles, and techniques of behavioral research, with emphasis on experimental and non-experimental design.
MKTG 642. Behavioral Research in Marketing II: Consumer Behavior
This course covers concepts and theories useful in understanding and researching consumer behaviors. Topics include attitude formation and change, social influence-persuasion-mass media communication, human decision-making and judgment, and memory processes. Course Objectives: 1. To familiarize you with research in social psychology and marketing that may help you to understand how different marketing strategies affect consumer behavior. 2. To give you a strong foundation for critical thinking in the area of consumer behavior.
MKTG 643. Quantitative Research in Marketing: Empirical Models and Methods
This seminar examines useful quantitative models and methods relevant to product planning and pricing, and promotion. Topics include conjoint analysis and measurement of multiattribute preference structures, LOGIT choice models, information search, product positioning, brand and customer equity, new product introduction, market structuring, and new product diffusion. (not offered in 2007-08)
MKTG 644. Quantitative Research in Marketing: Strategic Models and Methods
This seminar reviews major contributions and recent developments in marketing with a particular emphasis on the strategic interactions between firms. Students examine how firms craft their product, pricing, advertising, sales force, and channel strategies to create and sustain competitive advantage. A main purpose of the course is to generate new ideas, new research topics, and new applications for existing concepts and theories. (not offered in 2007-08)
MKTG 645. Empirical Methods for Consumer and Firm Decisions
This course will discuss empirical tools for analyzing decision contexts characterized by interactions among agents, with a focus on empirical applications in marketing. Examples include empirical models of price setting among firms, advertising competition, and equilibrium models of social interactions. The course starts with an overview of static models of decision making, and then focuses on dynamic decision contexts. Solution methods emphasizing numerical dynamic programming approaches will be emphasized. We then present specific applications, including category-pricing with state-dependent demand, durable good pricing and dynamic advertising. Finally, we will discuss recently proposed advanced methods for alleviating computational burden in dynamic models. The overall aim of the class is to help students obtain the skills to implement these methods in their research. We will have an applied focus overall, emphasizing the practical aspects of implementation, especially programming.
MKTG 646. Bayesian Inference: Methods and Applications
The course aims to develop a thorough understanding of Bayesian inference, with a special focus on empirical applications in marketing. The course will start with a brief theoretical foundation to Bayesian inference and will subsequently focus on empirical methods. Initial topics would include Bayesian linear regression, multivariate regression, importance sampling and its applications. Subsequently, the course will focus on Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods including the Gibbs Sampler and the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm and their applications. The overall focus of the course will be on applying these methods for empirical research using a programming language such as R or Matlab.
MKTG 648. Cross-Cultural Consumer Research
The objectives of this course are to (1) familiarize students with research in cultural psychology, particularly in the context of consumer behavior, and (2) build a set of academic-oriented skills (e.g., critical thinking, presentations, review process, creating hypotheses and testing them creatively). Specifically, the focus is on understanding current theoretical and methodological approaches to various aspects of culture and persuasion, as well as advancing this knowledge by developing testable hypotheses and theoretical perspectives that build on the current knowledge base. The content of the course (e.g., readings) represent basic and recent work in cultural psychology and related disciplines (psychology, anthropology and sociology). (not offered in 2007-08)
MKTG 661. Attitudes and Persuasion
This course provides an overview of recent research on attitudes and persuasion. Content includes broad coverage of the issues of major importance to attitude theory, but focuses on more recent issues and controversies that have captured the interest of researchers in the field. Topics include attitude change and resistance processes, automatic attitude activation, attitudinal ambivalence, attitude structure and function, and dual and implicit attitudes. Students become familiar with research methods and major issues in attitudes research and have a better understanding of how individuals form, use, and maintain their evaluations. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to critique existing research and formulate new research ideas. (not offered in 2007-08)
