Skip to main content Skip to main menu

Main menu

Slideshow

PhD in Marketing

Program Overview

The PhD in Business Administration with a focus in Marketing provides students with both strong empirical skills in econometrics, psychometrics, and statistics and strong theory development in consumer behavior, psychology, and strategy.

The department and its faculty consistently rank high in terms of research productivity. The department is ranked 15th worldwide based on publications in the premier American Marketing Association (AMA) journals in 2010 – 2019. The department is also ranked 11th among all U.S. public schools in the UT-Dallas Business School Research Rankings 2019-2022. Faculty have won multiple research awards and serve on the editorial boards of prestigious academic journals.

Doctoral students work with faculty at all phases of the research process—from research question formulation, research design, and data analysis to writing up the study. The culture is collegial and informal, with students viewed as colleagues and coauthors. Moreover, students are encouraged to work with multiple faculty, not just their chosen advisor or dissertation chair.

Student Profile

What kind of students are we looking for?

Consequently, the department looks for the following traits in PhD students:

  • Motivated, excited and intellectually curious about problems and issues
  • Disciplined and committed to think deeply about research problems and solutions
  • A willingness to learn econometric, psychometric and statistical skills
  • A willingness to learn about theoretical and conceptual issues in the field
  • Creative problem solvers
  • Business experience useful, but not a requirement.

Consumer behavior students typically work with:

Marketing strategy students typically work with:

Typical Course Sequence

Consumer Behavior Track

Year 1

  • Fall 
  • Spring

    • Marketing Department Seminar (MARK 9550 Consumer Behavior I or MARK 9450 Marketing Strategy I)

    • Marketing Department Course (MARK 9650 Multivariate Methods)

    • PSYC 6160 Sensory Psychology

    • PSYC 6430 Applied Regression Methods in Psychology

  • Summer
    • First Year Paper
    • Elective

Year 2

  • Fall
    • Marketing Department Seminar (MARK 9560 Consumer Behavior II or MARK 9480 Marketing Strategy II)

    • PSYC 6250 Psychometrics

    • PSYC 8240 Judgment and Decision Making

    • POLS 8501 Advanced Quantitative Methods I – Discrete Choice

  • Spring
    • Marketing Department Seminar (MARK 9560 Consumer Behavior II or MARK 9480 Marketing Strategy II)

    • Marketing Department Course (MARK 9700 Marketing Models)

    • SOCI 6220 Development of Sociological Theory

    • PSYC 8000 Advanced Topics in Psychology

  • Summer
    • Comprehensive Examination
    • Second Year Paper

Year 3

  • Fall
    • Comprehensive Examination

    • Oral Marketing Candidacy Exam

    • Assuming the passing of comprehensive exams, students in Year 3 focus on making progress on existing research projects, beginning lead-authored work, and framing their dissertations.

  • Spring
    • Dissertation Research
  • Summer
    • Dissertation Research

Year 4

  • Fall
    • Dissertation Research

    • Individual Research Interest

    • Elective

  • Spring

    • Defend Dissertation Proposal

    • Individual Research Interest

    • Elective

  • Summer
    • Dissertation Research

Year 5

  • Fall
    • Prepare for AMA job interviews (AMA Summer Educators' Conference)
  • Spring
    • Final Dissertation Defense
Marketing Strategy Track

Year 1

  • Fall
  • Spring
  • Summer
    • First Year Paper
    • Elective

Year 2

  • Fall
    • Marketing Department Seminar (MARK 9480 Marketing Strategy II or MARK 9560 Consumer Behavior II)
    • ECON 8130 Econometrics III
    • Elective
    • Elective
  • Spring
    • Marketing Department Seminar (MARK 9480 Marketing Strategy II or MARK 9560 Consumer Behavior II)
    • Marketing Department seminar (MARK 9700 Marketing Models)
    • Elective
    • Elective
  • Summer
    • Comprehensive Examination

Year 3

  • Fall
    • Marketing Department Seminar (MARK 9480 Marketing Strategy II or MARK 9560 Consumer Behavior II)
    • Marketing Department seminar (MARK 9700 Marketing Models)
    • Elective
    • Elective
  • Spring
    • Dissertation Research
  • Summer
    • Dissertation Research

Year 4

  • Fall
    • Dissertation Research
    • Individual Research Interest
    • Elective
  • Spring
    • Defend Dissertation Proposal
    • Individual Research Interest
  • Summer
    • Dissertation Research 

Year 5

  • Fall
    • Prepare for AMA job interviews (AMA Summer Educators' Conference)
  • Spring
    • Final Dissertation Defense

All the marketing departmental courses are required courses. Electives chosen will need the approval of the Graduate Coordinator. 

Concentrations

Consumer behavior research focuses on how consumers decide what and how much to consume and how consumers integrate different pieces of information (both consciously and unconsciously) to make predictions and judgments about their environment and target stimuli to inform their consumption decisions. Consumer behavior students take additional courses in psychology and sociology.

Marketing strategy research focuses on the components of marketing capabilities and resources such as brands, consumer relationships, innovation, sales force management and their impact on brand, business unit, customer, firm and sales force and salesperson performance. Marketing strategy students typically take additional courses in economics, econometrics and statistical methods as well courses in corporate finance, management strategy, sociology and social psychology.

PhD Student Academic Placements

Our PhD students have been successfully placed at research active universities. Some illustrative placements are as follows.

Year of Graduation

Name of PhD Student

University Placed

2017

Atanas Nikolov

Washington State University

2017

Keith Smith

Northeastern University

2018

Ashish Sharma

University of North Carolina (Charlotte)

2019

Kevin Sample

University of Rhode Island

2019

Jessica Babin

Ohio University

2020

Vincent Zhang

University of HongKong (HongKong)

2022

Youngtak Kim

University of Tennessee (Knoxville)

2022

Lana Waschka

Elon University

2022

Seoyoung Kim

Fordham University

The Terry College PhD Environment

Latest News

Three University of Georgia professors were appointed in April to endowed professorships in the Terry College of Business.

A few years into his television career, Rutledge Wood met with some executives to discuss new opportunities.

Terry College faculty accolades in Spring 2023

Upcoming events