Doctoral Course on Theories and Research in International and Global Marketing

Time:   NB: COURSE CANCELLED

Place: University of Vaasa, Wolffintie 34, 65200 Vaasa

The present plan is that the course would be organized at the University of Vaasa and Prof. Leonidas Leonidou would be the whole week at the University of Vaasa. There will be also a distant participation possibility, but preference is that participants would be in Vaasa. If the special situation still continues at the time of the course, the course will be organized fully online on November 30th-December 4th. There will be in mid-October 2020 further information about the arrangements.

Initial Schedule at glance: Starting on Monday at 12.00 and ending on Thursday latest at 16.00

A voluntary, joint course dinner will be organized during the week (place and time will be confirmed later). This dinner is on participant’s own expense.

Scope and language: ECTS 6, course language is English  

Course Objectives

The course focuses on recent developments and issues involved in international and global marketing research, and is divided into six broad thematic areas: overview of international marketing research, consumer buyer behavior, strategy/competitive advantage/performance, multinational marketing strategy, distribution and advertising/social media, and special topics including especially sustainable marketing.  Through a systematic analysis of articles in each of these thematic areas, students will be exposed to a wide array of international marketing problems and see how these have been effectively accommodated from an academic research perspective.

By attending the course, students are expected to accomplish the following learning objectives:

  • to become aware of current trends in international and global marketing research
  • to become familiar with different types of academic research and articles
  • to understand key conceptual, methodological, and empirical  issues relating to research published in reputable journals
  • to become familiar with analytical methods and skills required in conducting high quality research
  • to understand the various stages of the academic article writing process  

Course Requirements

The course is highly interactive between the class and the instructor, aiming to cultivate critical thinking and enhance skills in conducting international marketing research. Students will be divided into six groups, with each group having the responsibility of being familiar to a specific thematic area (see sessions 1 to 6) and act as discussants during the presentation of the articles in this area.  All students must be ready to contribute to the course through constructive participation and discussion. 

Based on input received from the course, each student is required to submit a report analyzing the key issues involved in developing a publishable paper (e.g., contribution, literature review, model, measurement, methodology, empirical analysis, etc.).  The length of the report should not exceed 3,000 words, excluding tables, diagrams, and references.  The report should be submitted in an electronic form the latest by xx, 2020, to the address: leonidas@ucy.ac.cy and to ha.nguyen@uva.fi

Signing up for the course

The students should sign up for the course by 30 September 2020. The study place is applied through submitting an electronic application of one page to Jorma Larimo ( jla@uva.fi), Department of Marketing, University of Vaasa, including:

  • contact information (name, university, address, e-mail),
  • information on the current phase of the studies (incl. year of enrolled as a doctoral student, number of earned study points, phase of doctoral research),
  • a short summary of the PhD research that indicates the topic, the area in which the research is conducted, and the key issues that are examined in more detail
  • need and motive for taking part in the course

The number of participants is restricted to 25 students. The course is organized by the Doctoral school FIGSIB and the members of KATAJA will be favored if all applicants cannot be accepted.

Organizers: Jorma Larimo, coordinator and general info ( jla@uva.fi) and Leonidas C. Leonidou, corresponding instructor and course responsible ( leonidas@ucy.ac.cy).

Article reading package:

The package will include 20-25 articles, three to five articles related to each thematic area of the course. Articles will be confirmed in mid-June 2020.

Additional reading will include at least “Advances in Global Marketing: A Research Anthology” eds. L. Leonidou, C. Katsikeas, S. Samiee and B. Aykol. Springer 2018.