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PhD in Marketing
Program Overview
Marketing is one of the major
functional areas in business and
non-profit organizations, and is one of
the most popular areas of study in most
undergraduate and graduate programs in
management. Academic research in
marketing covers a broad range of
topics, ranging from highly quantitative
models of market behavior and consumer
decision making to experimental studies
of consumption behavior.
A Ph.D. in marketing ordinarily
prepares students for careers in
academic research and teaching in this
area. Current and recent doctoral
students from the Smith School have won
prestigious dissertation competitions,
and have obtained positions at the
world's leading universities.
Recent doctoral student placements
include Xing Pan (2003, Assistant
Professor at Indiana University),
Lan Luo (2005, Assistant
Professor at the University of
Southern California),
Debora Viana Thompson,
(2006, Assistant Professor at Georgetown
University),
Ashwin Aravindakshan, (2007,
Assistant Professor at the University of
California, Davis) and
Shweta Oza,
(2007, Assistant Professor at the University of Miami). There has
been a very strong demand for Ph.D.s in
marketing in recent years, and this is
expected to continue.
Marketing professors who are doctoral
graduates of the Smith School of
Business at the University of Maryland
are among the nation's best in terms of
impact of their research on the
profession, according to a recent study
by Academic Assessment Services. Smith
doctoral marketing graduates ranked 15th
nationally in average number of
citations to their work.
Overview
The objective of the program is to
provide the most rigorous and up-to-date
training possible, and to provide an
educational experience that at least
matches that of the very best programs.
The marketing faculty at the Robert H.
Smith School includes the Editor-Elect
of the Journal of Marketing,
former Editor of Marketing Science
and the Editor of the Journal of
Service Research. In addition,
Smith marketing faculty are members of
the editorial boards of many top
journals in marketing, including
Journal of Marketing Research, Journal
of Consumer Research Marketing
Science and Journal of Marketing. Marketing
faculty members regularly publish in the
leading journals in marketing.
The marketing department at the
Robert H. Smith School is also the home
of the
Center for Excellence in Service,
a world-class center for the study
of such topics as customer equity
management, e-service and service
innovation. This center
hosts the annual
AMA Frontiers in Services Conference and
the
Journal of Service Research and is
also a
source of contacts with
corporations, who are potential
sources of funding and data for
research.
The presence of the
Center for
Excellence in Service makes the Ph.D.
program in marketing at the Smith School
especially attractive to students with
interests in service marketing,
e-service, customer equity and CRM.
However, the marketing department
faculty have a wide variety of other
interests, including marketing strategy,
marketing research, consumer behavior,
consumer decision making, retailing,
business-to-business marketing, pricing,
advertising, promotions, service
marketing, international marketing, and
product management. In short, the Robert
H. Smith School marketing faculty has a
very broad range of interests and
expertise that can accommodate virtually
any Ph.D. student interest.
Student Support
Students typically are supported through
research and teaching assistantships. In
their first two years, students normally
have a research assistantship that
involves working up to 20 hours per week
with a faculty member on research
projects. This is an excellent way to
learn the practical aspects of
conducting research, and often leads to
joint publications with faculty members.
After their first two years, students
normally do some teaching, and all
students in the program are required to
get teaching experience before they
graduate.
Levels of financial support are
competitive with the best schools, and
include stipend, tuition waiver, and
summer support. Students have office
facilities, access to state-of-the art
computing resources, and the use of the
University of Maryland’s excellent
library system. In addition our
corporate contacts are very useful
sources of data for research projects
and dissertations.
Students studying under current
faculty members in marketing at the
Robert H. Smith School have recently
been placed at Indiana University,
University of Southern California, Cornell University
and the University of Rochester.
Location
The University of Maryland’s Robert H.
Smith School of Business is
located in
College Park, a suburb of Washington,
D.C. College Park is 9 miles from
downtown Washington, the seat of the
Federal Government of the United States.
College Park is also 32 miles from the
city of Baltimore. The Baltimore-Washington
metropolitan area is the fourth largest
in the United States with almost 8
million residents. Aside from being one
of the world’s major centers of
government, this area is a major center
of the information technology,
telecommunication, bio-technology,
health care, and travel industries. The
area has one of the world’s most diverse
populations, and a sunny, temperate
climate. It offers activities to match
any taste, including restaurants of all
types, some of the world’s best museums,
and access to all sorts of outdoor
activities, ranging from boating and
fishing to running. Abundant housing and
access to public transportation is
available in the College Park area.
The Program
The goal of the Ph.D. program is to
develop outstanding research scholars in
marketing who are also effective
teachers. Toward this end, each doctoral
student:
- Takes relevant courses
- Completes a pre-dissertation
paper
- Must pass a written
comprehensive examination
- Prepares and defends a
dissertation proposal
- Implements and defends a
dissertation
A total of six courses (18 credits)
are required for the marketing major.
Ordinarily four of these courses will be
Ph.D. level seminars that students take
in their first two years (one per
semester). The purpose of these seminars
is to provide as broad coverage as
possible of the marketing area.
Depending on the student’s background
and interests, the other two marketing
courses can be in a variety of areas;
one or both may be waived if the student
has received an MBA Degree before
entering the program.
In addition to the marketing major,
each student must take two minors, each
of which comprises 12 credits (4
courses). One minor must be in the area
of research methods, and is normally
comprised of a set of courses on data
analysis relevant to the student’s
interests. The second minor can be in
any area related to the student’s area
of interest in marketing, and may be
selected from within or outside of the
Robert H. Smith School of Business.
Examples of relevant minors are
economics, psychology, information
systems, electronic commerce, and
management science.
Students are encouraged to become
active in research as soon as they enter
the program, and are expected to submit
something for publication, most likely
in collaboration with a faculty member,
by the end of their first year. The
first formal research requirement is a
paper based on the student’s own
original research that the student must
write and present to the marketing
faculty at the end of his/her second
year in the program. Students ordinarily
take their comprehensive exam in
marketing in the middle of their third
year. After that they work on their
dissertation. Depending on the student’s
background, the program ordinarily takes
4-5 years to complete.
Admission
Ideally students will have a master’s
degree in business or some related area
(e.g., psychology, economics, operations
research, communications), and a few
years of relevant work experience. In
some cases, students with undergraduate
degrees with a strong quantitative
focus, such as the physical sciences or
engineering, will be considered for
admission. An official score on the
Graduate Management Admissions test (GMAT)
is required. Student selection is based
on expected performance in the program.
Some of the factors considered in the
selection process are:
- Past academic record
- GMAT scores
- Letters of recommendation
- Level of expressed commitment to
the program
The typical doctoral student in
marketing has an undergraduate GPA of
3.5, holds a master’s degree, has about
three years of work experience, and has
a GMAT score above 650. Highly qualified
applicants will be interviewed on the
telephone or invited for a campus visit
prior to acceptance.
Information
Request for materials, contact:
Professor
Michel Wedel
Robert H. Smith School of Business
3303 Van Munching Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742.1815
Tel: 301.405.2162
Fax: 301.405.0146
E-mail:
mwedel@rhsmith.umd.edu
► Student
Profiles
►Visit the
Smith PhD Program Web site for more
information
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