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Self Study Report: Marketing Department
October 31, 2006
Section A: Unit Assessment of Strengths and Weaknesses
Quality of Instruction, Research and Service. The Department is providing quality instruction at the BBA, MS and Ph.D. levels. At the BBA level, NSSE Exit Survey data show Marketing students rating their college experience ahead of the ratings provided by other GSU majors. Year after year, the Department’s BBA students score at least in the 80th percentile, and usually in the 90th percentile, on the standardized “Major Field Test” of their Marketing knowledge. Learning outcomes assessment of the Department’s MS students shows them at least meeting and usually exceeding objectives. BBA and master’s level students regularly conduct Marketing projects for actual clients, and the praise showered upon these students by their clients testifies to the quality of the Department’s programs and students. At the Ph.D. level, the ultimate test of quality is success in placing graduates in faculty positions at research institutions. Here the Department is proud of its record in placing students at institutions such as the University of Notre Dame and Oklahoma State University.
At the same time, there is room to improve. Results from Office of Institutional Research (OIR) surveys of BBA and graduate alumni paint a very different picture of the Department than results from surveys of current students. The Department believes that the more negative evaluations by alumni reflect a historically weak career services program in the College and the lack of an organized alumni program in the Department. The Department is also concerned about the number of recent Ph.D. graduates taking positions at local teaching institutions like University of West Georgia. Better recruiting and increased funding for doctoral student research should improve placement outcomes.
The Department is proud of its research productivity. Fifteen of 18 tenured/tenure-track faculty recently had their Graduate faculty status renewed, indicating their continued research productivity. Nine of the 18 have had a paper published or accepted for publication in a premier journal in 2003 or later. On the other hand, production of premier journal publications has not consistently met the Department’s standard of three per year. The Department attributes this partly to attrition among tenured/tenure-track faculty, inability to hire, cannibalization of faculty for administrative positions, and declining morale and loss of direction resulting from two failed department head searches, the unplanned merger with the Business Communications program, and declining research support from the College.
The Department is proud of its service record. The Marketing RoundTable continues to be a model outreach program. Department faculty include three journal editors and one associate editor. Faculty are members of numerous editorial review boards, as well as performing a large volume of ad hoc review work. Department faculty are senior officers of major professional associations. Department faculty lead and support programs aimed at the advancement of women and minorities.
Centrality of Programs. The Department’s programs and activities contribute directly to the achievement of the University’s mission, as outlined in the University’s 2006-2010 Strategic Plan (see Appendix A1). The strategic plan (p. 1) specifies that the University will provide “programs of the highest quality in . . . business.” As the customer-facing aspect of every business, Marketing is essential. The plan also specifies (p. 1) that “perhaps our greatest comparative advantage is our location in Atlanta,” commercial hub of the Southeast with worldwide connections. The Department reaches out to Marketing practitioners in leading corporations and sends its graduates to work for organizations large and small. The Department’s Business Communications program addresses the University’s goal (p. 2) of producing students with “interpersonal skills and competencies.” Overall, the Department’s students clearly “contribute to the economic, educational, social, professional and cultural vitality” (p. 2) of the region. The Department has supported key initiatives such as Freshman Learning Communities (p. 3) and is committed to diversity among both faculty and students. Proceeds from the annual Max Awards event, for example, support an ever-increasing number of minority scholarships in Marketing. The Department also supports the University’s efforts to develop collaborative programs across units and across institutions. Finally, the Department is active internationally, with Department faculty serving as visiting instructors at universities around the world and collaborating in research programs with faculty in many nations.
The Department’s programs are also consistent with the College’s strategic plan (see Appendix A2). The plan cites five core values: excellence, integrity, collegiality and diversity, innovation and partnership. Exit survey ratings by Department BBA students surpass those of students in other Departments in the College. Graduate faculty in the Department publish their research in premier Marketing journals. All of the Department’s nominations for promotion and/or tenure during the review period were approved by the College and University. The Department’s faculty are diverse, and they encourage diversity, as noted above.
Viability of Programs. Demand for the Department’s programs remain strong. Approximately 1,000 students are enrolled in the Department’s BBA program, with approximately 200 current “Marketing MBA” students, according to Office of Institutional Research (OIR) data. The Department’s MS program has a small enrollment, but the cost of maintaining the program is very low. The Ph.D. program is crucial to the Department’s research mission. Enrollment is limited, and students make good progress toward completion.
Resource availability issues haunt the Department. The Business Communications program expects a temporary 60% increase in enrolments in BCOM 3950 (the required undergraduate business communications course), but the College has not committed to allowing the Department to hire visiting instructors to cope with the surge. Even without this temporary surge, the Business Communications program is critically dependent on part-time instructors, and this dependency makes it more difficult to ensure consistency and foster continuous improvement.
The Department’s research mission suffers from the loss of faculty and the inability to hire. In response to the Department’s last self-study, the University authorized the hiring of a junior tenure-track faculty member to work with the Center for Mature Consumer Studies. That faculty member, who recently won promotion to associate professor with tenure, remains the only net tenure-track hire for the Department in this century, despite the departure of three tenured / tenure-track faculty and despite tenured faculty being tapped for administrative positions. The Department has benefited substantially from a superior support staff.
Strategic Focus. Strategic advantages for the Department are its breadth of expertise and its location in a major business center. The Department exploits its advantage in breadth by offering degree programs at the undergraduate, MBA, specialized master’s and Ph.D. levels. The BBA program helps students to launch careers in Marketing. The MBA program helps students to advance their careers, while the MS program offers an option for students who want to concentrate in Marketing rather than have broad coverage in business. The MS program plays to the Department’s breadth of expertise, and it provides a potential source for Ph.D. program students. The Ph.D. program prepares students to become research faculty in Marketing. At the BBA and master’s levels, the Department offers courses in consumer marketing, business marketing, logistics, marketing research, advertising, retailing and other fields, equipping students with the skills to succeed in the marketplace. At the doctoral level, the Department offers a suite of doctoral seminars, backed up by courses in research methods, that provide thorough preparation for apprentice research faculty. Required courses in Business Communications help College graduates to develop the communication skills they need to distinguish temselves from other business degree-holders and be effective in business situations.
Financial Analysis. The Department was directed to focus this section on strategic changes and resources provided as a result of the prior round of Academic Program Review. The Department did not undertake any major strategic changes at that time, but the Department did receive permission to hire a tenure-track assistant professor as associate director of the Center for Mature Consumer Studies. The hired faculty member has co-authored papers with the Center’s director and co-authored multiple premier publications in Marketing, earning promotion to associate professor with tenure.
Section B: Historical and Current Contexts
This self-study covers the academic years 2003-04, 2004-05, and 2005-06 (FY 2004, 2005, 2006) for student data and calendar years 2003, 2004 and 2005 for faculty productivity data. Since its last self-study, the Department has been through two major changes. Just prior to the self-study period, the College’s Business Communications program, until then housed in the Dean’s Office, was merged into the Department of Marketing. The Business Communications program teaches required undergraduate and graduate courses in business communications, but has no majors and no tenure-track faculty. By contrast, the Marketing Department had historically been dominated by tenured/tenure-track faculty and mostly taught courses for Marketing majors, devoting only a small part of its effort to teaching undergraduate and graduate core courses for the College of Business. The merger was the result of a demand by the Association to Advance Colleges and Schools of Business (AASCB) that the Business Communications program must be housed within some degree-granting unit.
The other change is the result of time, success in promotion and tenure reviews, limited hiring and some departures. A wave of hiring of new assistant professors in the late 1980s and early 1990s had, by 1996, produced a faculty consisting of a small core of professors, a growing body of associate professors, and a declining number of assistant professors. OIR data (see Tables B1, B6 and G1) show that, by FY 2004 (after the merger), the Marketing Department included 7 tenured professors, 10 tenured and 1 untenured associate professors, 2 untenured assistant professors, and 6 non-tenure track instructors. (OIR numbers include faculty who were present for only part of any fiscal year.) Between FY 2004 and FY 2005, two associate professors were promoted to professor, 1 tenured associate professor retired, and 1 untenured assistant professor left. For FY 2006, the Marketing Department was able to add 2 NTT instructors, and one former NTT instructor was rehired, after a year’s hiatus, at the rank of Clinical Assistant Professor, while the complement of tenure-track faculty remained unchanged. Just after the end of the review period, the department’s last tenure-track assistant professor won promotion with tenure, so that the Department enters Fall 2006 with no tenure-track assistant professors, 9 tenured associate professors, 9 tenured professors, and 8 NTT faculty. In comparison to its three designated peer programs and three aspirational programs, the Department is the only one with no tenure-track assistant professors (see Tables B1, B6).
In FY 2003 and again in FY 2005, the Marketing Department undertook external searches for a new department head. Both external searches failed, with existing faculty stepping in to fill the chair’s role. In addition, the review period includes two aborted searches to fill the E. Vachel Pennebaker Chair in Direct Marketing. Thus, aside from rehiring one faculty member in 2000, the Marketing Department has hired only one tenure-track faculty member during this century. On the other hand, the Department enters Fall 2006 having launched a search to fill the Richard and Susan Lenny Distinguished Chair in Marketing, but within the context of a declared college-wise hiring freeze.
These events have also sharpened demographic divisions among the three groups of faculty—professors, associate professors and NTT faculty. Entering the review period, the professors were all male, while the associate professors were 60% female, the assistant professors were 50% female, and the NTT faculty were 67% female. Entering Fall 2006, the professors are still all male, while the associate professors are 67% female and the NTT faculty are 75% female. Of the 5 faculty not classified as White, 4 (80%) are either associate professors or NTT. It should be noted that a female was the leading candidate in the first failed department head search (the candidate declined the position due to family constraints). Nevertheless, today the Department is the only one among the seven comparison programs where the faculty at the rank of professor are all male. The Department remains concerned about the demographic differences by rank within the faculty.
Faculty Research Productivity. Please see Table B2 for data and Section F for a complete discussion.
Programs. The Marketing Department offers BBA, MBA, MS and Ph.D. programs in Marketing and supports other degree programs. The Department teaches a variety of core or support courses, including MK 3010 and BCOM 3950 (core courses for the BBA); and MBA 7040, MBA 8015, MBA 8140, and MBA 8240 (core courses in support of the MBA); and a variety of similar courses in support of the College’s EMBA and PMBA programs, as well as quantitative methods courses (MGS 9950 and MK 9200) which are part of the doctoral programs in many business fields. (Some MBA courses are minimester courses, carrying only 1.5 hours credit and meeting for only half of a semester. A pending College proposal will eliminate MBA 7040 and replace MBA 8140 and MBA 8240 with a 3 hour MBA 8245.) The Department also teaches weekend workshops required for some master’s level programs, in lieu of MBA 8015. Table D1 shows that the Marketing Department staffed courses with 43 different “prefix + number” designations in FY 2006.
The BBA, MBA, and Ph.D. address the needs of students who are interested in the Marketing function. The MS program addresses a small number of graduate business students who would otherwise pursue an MBA but who wish to focus more strongly on Marketing, instead of having broader coverage of business in general. While the number of students in the MS program is relatively small, the incremental costs of the program are also very low, and are fully justified by the gain in flexibility for students. The MS program allows the Department to exploit its breadth of competence, and MS students provide a pool of potential candidates for the Ph.D. program. Indeed, there may be opportunities to expand the MS program through working collaboratively with other units, consistent with the College’s emphasis on its graduate programs.
For the BBA and MBA programs, students are not required to declare a major or concentration at the time of admission. Enrollment numbers for the BBA and MBA programs may be misleading. While OIR reports (in Table B3), for example, that an average of 1,177 students over the three-year period were enrolled in the BBA program in Marketing, the OIR survey of all current undergraduate Marketing students was mailed to only approximately 864 students (a 25% response rate and n = 216 implies N = 864. Moreover, the average of 195 BBA degrees conferred implies an average time to completion of 1,177 / 195 = 6.0 years, while the lower figure implies an average time to completion of 864 / 195 = 4.4 years. On the other hand, Table B3 reports an average of 206 Marketing MBA students, while OIR survey results imply a total of only 138 current Marketing graduate students, including MBA, MS and Ph.D. students. Again, the fact that MBA students do not need to declare a concentration or a major makes it difficult to identify a student as a “Marketing” student. This issue noted, we will attempt to interpret the OIR numbers as given.