Emphasis in Marketing
Program Overview
The goal of the Ph.D. program in Marketing is to prepare doctoral students to become productive researchers and teachers at top research universities. Students work closely with our faculty to identify areas of research interest and choose to specialize in one or more of the three core areas of Marketing:
- Consumer Behavior: focuses on developing theories to understand consumer behavior, drawing upon a blend of literature in marketing and psychology including cognitive and social psychology.
- Marketing Management and Strategy: focuses on developing theories to understand firms and markets, with an emphasis on managerial and strategic issues, and draws upon theories and methods from industrial economics, strategic management, political science, and organizational behavior.
- Marketing Models and Quantitative Methods: uses techniques from statistics, economics, computer science, management science, and operations research to develop quantitative models to solve marketing problems.
About the Marketing Department
The Smeal Marketing Department is noted for its productivity, the achievement of faculty members, and its service to the broader research community. The department is consistently ranked among the top marketing departments in the world in terms of research productivity, and prides itself on having one of the best marketing faculties in the country. The scholarship of the department’s faculty has been recognized by leading journals and associations such as the American Marketing Association and Marketing Science Institute.
To learn more about the Marketing faculty, visit:
To learn more about the Marketing Ph.D. Program, visit:
For more information on the Smeal Ph.D. Emphasis in Marketing, contact:
Dr. Courtney Szocs
Associate Professor in Marketing
Ph.D. Program Coordinator
Department of Marketing
Smeal College of Business
The Pennsylvania State University
458 Business Building
University Park PA 16802-3603
Telephone: 814-865-1869
E-mail: cks6084@psu.edu