Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Course
Marketing PhD Seminar
Professor Brian Ratchford
Term Fall 2010
Meetings T 2:30 - 5:15 p.m. – Rm. 2.802
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Assignments & Academic Calendar
Date Topic
Introduction and Overview of the Topic
September 7 Griffin and Broniarczyk, “The Slippery Slope: The Impact of Feature
Alignability on Search and Satisfaction,” Journal Of Marketing Research,
47 (April 2010), 323-334.
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Learning and Consideration
September 28 Furse, Punj and Stewart, "A Typology of Individual Search Strategies
Among Purchasers of New Automobiles," JCR, 10 (March 1984), 417-
431.
Stigler and Becker, “De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum,” The American
Economic Review, 67 (March 1977), 76-90.
Price Dispersion
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The Supply of Information: Retailing
Johnson, Bellman, and Lohse , “Cognitive Lock-In and the Power Law of
Practice,” Journal of Marketing, 67 (April 2003), 62-75.
November 30
Student Presentations of Project Results
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Course Policies
Students will be required to read and discuss a number of readings which are
representative of the literature in the various areas. Each student will be
assigned to present a 30 minute summary and critique of a number of
readings (the exact number will vary inversely with class size). In addition,
Grading (credit) each student will be asked to complete a project which ideally will lead to a
Criteria publication sometime in the future. The project can use one of the data bases
which I have at my disposal to be outlined below. There will be a take home
final exam, and one or more exams/assignments of the take home variety.
Grades will be based on projects (about 50%), exams/assignments (about
30%), class presentation and participation (about 20%).
Make-up Exams None
Extra Credit None
Late Work Handled on ad hoc basis – I do not want to give incompletes.
While you may study anything which is relevant to the course, using any data
base, I have a number of data bases at my disposal, and a number of "pet
Special ideas" for projects which use them. I will outline the nature of the data bases
Assignments and "pet ideas" at greater length to anyone interested in pursuing a particular
project.
A student at the university neither loses the rights nor escapes the
responsibilities of citizenship. He or she is expected to obey federal, state,
and local laws as well as the Regents’ Rules, university regulations, and
administrative rules. Students are subject to discipline for violating the
standards of conduct whether such conduct takes place on or off campus, or
whether civil or criminal penalties are also imposed for such conduct.
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The faculty expects from its students a high level of responsibility and
academic honesty. Because the value of an academic degree depends upon
the absolute integrity of the work done by the student for that degree, it is
imperative that a student demonstrate a high standard of individual honor in
his or her scholastic work.
Plagiarism, especially from the web, from portions of papers for other
classes, and from any other source is unacceptable and will be dealt with
under the university’s policy on plagiarism (see general catalog for details).
This course will use the resources of turnitin.com, which searches the web
for possible plagiarism and is over 90% effective.
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Procedures for student grievances are found in Title V, Rules on Student
Services and Activities, of the university’s Handbook of Operating
Procedures.
Copies of these rules and regulations are available to students in the Office
of the Dean of Students, where staff members are available to assist
students in interpreting the rules and regulations.
As per university policy, incomplete grades will be granted only for work
unavoidably missed at the semester’s end and only if 70% of the course
work has been completed. An incomplete grade must be resolved within
Incomplete Grades
eight (8) weeks from the first day of the subsequent long semester. If the
required work to complete the course and to remove the incomplete grade is
not submitted by the specified deadline, the incomplete grade is changed
automatically to a grade of F.
Essentially, the law requires that colleges and universities make those
reasonable adjustments necessary to eliminate discrimination on the basis
of disability. For example, it may be necessary to remove classroom
prohibitions against tape recorders or animals (in the case of dog guides) for
students who are blind. Occasionally an assignment requirement may be
substituted (for example, a research paper versus an oral presentation for a
student who is hearing impaired). Classes enrolled students with mobility
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impairments may have to be rescheduled in accessible facilities. The
college or university may need to provide special services such as
registration, note-taking, or mobility assistance.
These descriptions and timelines are subject to change at the discretion of the Professor.
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MAS 6v05 001
Presentations of Readings
Students will be asked to volunteer to present articles in class; given the size of the class this
means that each student will be asked to present about 3 articles through the course of the
semester.
The presentations should form the basis for a thorough discussion of each article; one reason why
I have limited readings to 3-4 per class is to enable this.
Presentations should be set to no more than 30 minutes. The following should be covered:
All students are expected to read each article carefully and to be prepared to discuss each of the
readings. I will explain the more difficult points to make sure that everyone understands them.
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MAS 6V05 001
As is standard for Ph.D. seminars, a project is required for this course. The objectives of the
project are to get you into independent research early, to help you to develop a deeper
understanding of some topic related to the course, and possibly to get you started on something
that you might pursue in a summer paper or dissertation.
The project might be on any topic related to the course, broadly defined. I will be the final arbiter
of the appropriateness of the topic, but will employ a loose definition of relatedness of the topic to
the course. Topic areas that are fair game are anything related to consumer search, broadly
defined to include retailing, advertising, branding, personal selling and search behavior itself.
Topics will differ as a function of time in the program, and may be related to dissertations of
advanced students, or allow beginning students to test their interest in a particular area. Given the
orientation of the course, an empirical analysis of some problem related to the course would be
most appropriate. However, other types of projects are possible, subject to my approval.
While you are welcome to use your own data for the empirical analysis, we have access to a
number of datasets that you may use. See me for information on accessing data. Some of these
datasets are:
Surveys of auto car buyers matched to data on individual car attributes. Data are
currently available from surveys conducted in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2010.
Survey data on online and offline purchases of books and CDs
Projects that show creativity and promise for future development, but may need work on some
issues, will be rewarded more than projects that are done correctly but are low on the creativity
and promise dimensions.
You will note that a time for final presentations has been set on the syllabus. Given that the class
is larger than most seminars, more than the 3 hours contained in one class will probably be
required for this. While details on presentations will follow, the following timeline for projects
will be employed.
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