Bruce L. Stern

Do Academics and Practitioners agree on What and How to Teach the Undergraduate Marketing Research Course

A survey was undertaken with executives from marketing research firms and marketing faculty who teach the under-graduate research course. Each group was asked comparable questions about desired course delivery methods, course content, and statistical coverage. Several significant gaps were found between the two groups but none larger than the perception of which statistical methods should be taught in the undergraduate research class. It is clear that both groups could benefit from learning more about each other’s preferences and reasoning.

U.S. Business Schools' Reaction to the Total Quality Management Movement.

Abstract Since the mid-1980s, many U.S. businesses have had to come to grips with the total quality management movement. For some reason this movement had escaped the awareness of most business schools until the early 1990s. This study, based upon a survey of U.S. business school deans, attempts to determine what organizational, faculty development, and curricular changes business schools have made as a result of this movement. The results show that a few business schools have moved forward rapidly on the TQM front, but the vast majority are in a wait-and-see, exploratory, or experimental mode.

Business Educators' Use of Conferences, Journals, and Textbooks

Abstract Faced with declining budgets, university administrators have reduced expenditures on faculty-development programs and other “basic tools” of faculty development, such as professional conferences, academic journals, and textbooks. In this exploratory study, a mail survey of 100 faculty from the colleges of business at three universities measured the extent to which these basic tools are used as well as the facultys perceived usefulness of the tools. The findings show that all three tools are used extensively, and all three are perceived to provide significant benefits, though the benefits vary in terms of each tools usefulness for teaching, research, or consulting. The findings, though exploratory, have implications for future budgetary decisions.

Risky shift: An empirical investigation and implications for industrial buying behavior and marketing management

This study attempts to determine whether the nature of the industrial buying process has an effect on the riskiness of its decisions. Research has shown that group discussion of alternatives has a tendency to shift initial risk preferences of individuals and groups. This social phenomenon, known as “risky shift,” has important implications for marketers since many decisions involve group consensus or social influence if decisions are made by a single individual. It was posited that the influence of others, mainfested by group discussion, will change the risk preference in both individual and group consensus decisions. An industrial supplier selection decision was presented to 92 marketing students in which five alternative sources of supply were described in reference to various performance criteria. The data clearly reflected statistically significant changes in risk preferences as a result of group discussion in both the individual before-individual after and individual before-group after type decision.