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Postgraduate Research Studies

The Discipline of Marketing offers the following research degrees:

Areas of Research

The staff in the Discipline of Marketing use various methods in their research, including qualitative, experimental, and quantitative approaches. The primary areas of research in the Discipline reflect the particular interests and expertise of staff. The substantial research areas include the following:

Consumer behaviour

  • Consumer adoption processes; identity negotiation; learning
  • Consumption of sporting events; symbolism; systems
  • Cross cultural consumer behaviour
  • Culture and consumption
  • Cultural and consumption transitions
  • Environmental psychology
  • Gender and consumption
  • In-store promotions
  • Religion and consumption
  • Self concept and persuasion
  • Social class and segmentation
  • Store layout and design
  • Technology and learning
  • The role of habit in consumption
  • Voluntary lifestyle transition

Strategic marketing

  • Brand Building
  • Business to business marketing
  • Corporate and marketing strategy
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Firm capabilities and marketing strategy
  • Marketing metrics
  • Networks and relationships in business markets
  • Pharmaceutical marketing

Societal impact of marketing

  • "Anti-consumption" and "anti-consumerism" movements
  • Children as consumers
  • Withholding consumption: Boycotting

International marketing

  • International entrepreneurship
  • International partnerships and alliances
  • International strategy

Non-thesis Requirements

Doctoral students must successfully complete the induction program and four doctoral seminars within the first two years of study. The topics included in the seminars are; Research Methods I (multivariate statistical methods), Research Methods II (multivariate statistical methods), Research Methods III (experimental design, procedure, and analysis), and Research Methods (historical perspectives and philosophical issues in marketing research).

At the end of the first full-year of study, all students are expected to submit a 20-30 page proposal presenting their intended thesis research, including detailed discussion of the method(s) to be used to complete the study. Each student would also be responsible for scheduling a one-hour seminar in which they present the key aspects of the proposal to academic staff within the Discipline. The student will present their proposal for the first 30 minutes, leaving 30 minutes for questions. Students would immediately be advised as to whether they were successful in defending their proposal, and in cases where the student was unsuccessful, s/he would be advised as to which aspects of the proposal need further work or consideration. A student's progress in the first year will largely be based on the marks earned in the seminars and success in defending the thesis proposal.

At the end of the second full year of study, each student would be expected to complete the first two chapters of the thesis. In the case of an empirical test of a theory or conceptual model, these two chapters would address the problem definition (i.e., Chapter 1), and the review of the literature (i.e., Chapter 2). For theses having alternative objectives (e.g., development of a new statistical algorithm) and/or paradigms (e.g., ethnographic investigation into household food consumption patterns), the first two chapters may follow a different format (see Format of the PhD Thesis below). Students would also be expected to submit an article for publication in: (a) a refereed journal, (b) an international conference, or (c) a national conference. The manuscript should ideally elaborate on one of the principle contributions of the PhD thesis.

Format of the PhD Thesis

The format of the thesis depends on the paradigms and methods adopted by the PhD candidate. However, the expectation would be that the length of a thesis would be at least 50,000 words in length, and would not typically exceed 100,000 words. In general, most theses in Marketing would be expected to conform to the following framework:

Chapter 1 Defining the research problem (i.e., rationale, significance, etc.)
Chapter 2 Literature Review (i.e., core disciplines, historical analysis of marketing literature, recent developments, etc.)
Chapter 3 Theory and Hypotheses: (i.e., theoretical framework, description of key variables and constructs, derivation of specific predictions, etc.)
Chapter 4 Method (i.e., research design, data collection procedures, description of the sample, measures of key variables, etc.)
Chapter 5 Results (i.e., key summary statistics, tests of specific hypotheses, ancillary findings, etc.)
Chapter 6 Discussion (i.e., implications with respect to theory, implications with respect to industry practice, unresolved issues, interesting but unexpected findings, etc.)
Chapter 7 Future Research Directions
Appendices  
Bibliography  

Please email any enquiries to phdmarketingenquiries@econ.usyd.edu.au.