Ph.D. Student Camp for Research in Business-to-Business Markets Call for Nominations

August 2-3, 2007
Washington, DC

Objective

Penn State's Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM), with the support of the American Marketing Association (AMA,) the Marketing Science Institute (MSI), and Georgia State's Center for Business and Industrial Marketing (CBIM), is sponsoring its second Ph.D. Student Camp for Research in Business-to-Business Markets.

The camp, aimed for students in all years of their Ph.D. studies, is designed to
(a) educate Ph.D. students about research opportunities in the area of B-to-B marketing,
(b) introduce interested students to the network of B-to-B students and scholars,
(c) identify areas of support, including data sources, funding and research guidance in the B-to-B domain, and
(d) provide feedback on research projects.

The camp will enable students to interact with prominent faculty members and young, promising scholars, get acquainted with research paradigms and topics in business-to-business strategy, marketing, and management and understand how to develop and publish quality business research articles in top academic journals.

Eligibility

The camp is designed for students who have completed at least one year of doctoral work and have interest in or are thinking of pursuing work in B-to-B marketing and management. There are no geographic or field restrictions; we anticipate that students studying in fields including marketing, strategy, management, R&D management, information systems, and business logistics/supply chain management will find the camp attractive and beneficial.

Selection Criteria

An essay from the student along with their vita and a recommendation letter from a faculty sponsor will be used to select students for the camp. A maximum of 35 students will be invited; each University can submit up to 2 student applications.

1. Student Essays

The objective of the essay is to judge the suitability of the student for the Research Camp. The students are expected to write an essay (1,000 words maximum) that addresses the question:

A business-to-business research issue(s) that interests me is XXX. (Why?)

This essay along with a recommendation letter from a faculty member will be used to select students for the research camp.

In developing the theme for the essay, applicants should consider the following issues (for details visit the ISBM Web site: http://www.smeal.psu.edu/isbm/isbmres):

• Product policy
• Market structure and operations
• Organizational buyer behavior
• Buying strategies and operations
• Managing the business-to-business sales process
• Customer value
• Business relationships
• Market channels
• Exchange design and analysis
• Market communications
• Marketing information systems and eBusiness in business-to-business markets
• Business market research
• Marketing engineering
• Global business marketing issues
• The role of design in the business marketing mix
• Product development when the product depends upon network externalities or complementary products for success
• Managing product development in the context of complex product development alliances
• Direct business marketing
• The use of business marketing research
• Modeling and managing the value chain
• Implementation of marketing/organizational change
• Metrics
• Organizational design for marketing initiatives
• Change management

2. Recommendation Letter

From the faculty recommendation letter we will gauge the general motivation and ability of the student along with the student's interest in the domain of B-to-B.

Partial List of Faculty Participants

Rajdeep Grewal (Penn State)
Abbie Griffin (University of Utah)
Ajay Kohli (Emory University)
Gary Lilien (Penn State)
Robert Thomas (Georgetown University)
Christophe Van den Bulte (Wharton)
Barton Weitz (University of Florida)
Jean L. Johnson (University of Washington)
Srinath Gopalakrishna (University of Missouri)
Gerry Tellis (University of Southern California)
George John (University of Minnesota)
Mark Bergen (University of Minnesota)
Raj Srivastava (Emory University)
Wes Johnston (Georgia State University)

Costs

There is a $25.00 registration fee, and most meals will be provided. The students and their universities are responsible for travel and lodging costs. There will be a limited number of scholarships to partially defray lodging and travel costs; interested students should request and justify scholarship support in their application, along with a note from their department indicating (a) department's level of support and (b) need for level of requested ISBM supplement.

Registration

Registration form. Click here for form (.pdf 74Kb) *Acrobat

Contact Information

Send clarifying questions, essays, vita and supporting letters to:

Abbie Griffin
University of Utah
abbie.griffin@business.utah.edu

with a copy to
Lori Nicolini
LNicolini@psu.edu