Leader: Professor Mike Ewing

Offered

Caulfield First semester 2008 (On-campus split block of classes)

Synopsis

Some say marketing has 'borrowed' excessively from other disciplines (from both within and outside the social sciences). As a result, home-grown theories are less common in marketing as they are in management, economics, or sociology - for example. Unlike the Academy of Management Review, marketing does not have a dedicated theory journal. Notwithstanding, there is ample opportunity for the marketing discipline to consolidate and then advance its theoretical boundaries and thereby grow in both stature and rigour. This unit will equip graduate students with the necessary skills to conduct scholarly research that will legitimately advance the boundaries of marketing knowledge.

Objectives

The learning objectives of this unit are to:

• critically analyse the origins and history of marketing thought, including continuities and discontinuities with the past;
• explain the major schools of thought in Marketing;
• compare a range of select theories from other disciplines and evaluate if these theories might be useful in a marketing context;
• critically review a number of methods of inquiry and explanation utilised in the discovery and confirmation of knowledge;
• compare explanatory philosophies within marketing and their relevance to changes in marketing;
• explain critical thinking in marketing theory use apply and its use to interpret and integrate findings into a broader theoretical framework.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 60%
Examination (3 hours): 40%

Contact hours

3 hours per week