A Community of Learners
Editors Deborah DeLong, Chatham University Dawn Edmiston, College of William and Mary Brian Vander Schee, Aurora University ISSN 2325-3509 (print), ISSN 2325-3533 (online)
19th Annual Marketing Management Association Fall Educators’ Conference September 17-19, 2014, San Antonio, Texas
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Marketing Management Association Fall Educators’ Conference is really a unique experience. The value proposition is outstanding yet the passion for teaching excellence in marketing education evidenced by the level of participation and quality of presentations make the conference truly amazing. The conference would not be so outstanding if it were not for the hard work of MMA contributors and external supporters. The conference began with three pre-conference workshops. Thanks to pre-conference workshop instructors Theresa Clarke, Bill Wellington and Lyle Wetsch. This was the second year to offer the Doctoral Student Teaching Consortium. Thanks to Mary Conran for coordinating the Consortium as well as the faculty colleagues listed separately in this publication. Also special thanks to AxcessCapon for financially supporting the consortium. Thank you to Zina Taran for coordinating the Career Placement Service as well. The conference received many refereed paper submissions. Cengage Learning supports excellence in teaching scholarship by sponsoring the best conference refereed paper award. The Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing also sponsored an award this year for the first time with the outstanding paper in interactive marketing education. Thank you to all the refereed paper reviewers listed separately in this publication. Two competitions highlight the conference program. AxcessCapon sponsored the Teaching Innovation competition for the fourth year. Thank you to Bill Madway for serving as the competition coordinator as well as to the judges listed separately in this publication. Thank you to uSamp for supporting the Outstanding Teacher-Scholar Doctoral Student competition. Pam Kennett-Hensel served as the competition coordinator with help from the judges listed separately in this publication. uSamp also sponsored the Thursday Awards Lunch – thank you! Interpretive Simulations sponsored the Journal for Advancement in Marketing Education outstanding reviewers and article awards. Interpretive also helped us to identify each other by sponsoring the lanyards and name badges, which was much appreciated. Dawn Edmiston and Debbie DeLong did an excellent job once again serving as the conference proceedings coeditors. The session chairs listed separately in this publication also help to make the conference run smoothly, thank you for your involvement. Thank you to all the exhibitors noted below as well. Mark your calendars for the next MMA Fall Educators’ Conference to be held September 16-18, 2015 at the San Juan Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino in Puerto Rico. The 2015 MMA Spring Conference will be held March 2527, 2015 at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago. Thank You, Gail Zank, Conference Chairperson Brian A. Vander Schee, Conference Program Chairperson
PLANNER PERSONAS: HUMANIZING THE MARKETING PLANNING/STRATEGY COURSE E. Vince Carter, California State University, Bakersfield Sonja Martin Poole, University of San Francisco EXTENDED ABSTRACT The conundrum of strategy analytics is that the real world is comprised of humans. Heretofore, marketing strategy courses have not used persona techniques to humanize strategic planning proficiency the way they are applied in consumer behavior courses and professional brand management. The Planner Persona experiment explores whether humanizing marketing planning decisions strengthens students’ personal familiarity with strategic decision making, and raises their functional proficiency in strategy concept application. Personas are advanced as a pedagogical method for bridging experiential and epistemological learning methods in order to broaden the pedagogical scope of course applications and deepen the personal skills measured by course aptitude (see Figure 1). Figure 1. Classifying Personas Based on Experiential & Epistemological Learning Scope/Skills Marketing Education Pedagogical Learning Measures & Methods Epistemological Learning Application Learning Aptitude Experiential Learning Application Scope Skills Scope (Subjective/EQ -- Who & Why) (Objective/IQ -- What & How) Narrow Narrow Wide Wide Application Application Application Scope Application Scope Scope Scope Shallow Aptitude Skills PERSONAS Experiential Discovery Experimental Strategy (“Individual Personas”) (“Instrument Portfolios”) Moderate Aptitude Practical Function Theoretical Foundation Skills Deep Personal Feelings Analytical Focus Aptitude Skills As pedagogical techniques, planner personas impart personal motivation to apply objective strategic planning theory/analysis (IQ), while also guiding subjective practical problem solving, idea discovery, and self-reflection (EQ). Marketing ethics is vital (Hunt & Vitell, 2006; Hunt & Laverie, 2004), because role models teach virtue. “In a theory of virtue, there is much attention to role models. The insight here is that being an ethical person is not simply an analytical and rational matter. … One learned the right thing to do by observing good people and by doing what they do.” (Williams & Murphy, 1990, p. 24) Planning Personas highlight the limited human presence in the marketing planning/strategy courses, due to: 1. The lack of discovery regarding the personal acumen of human planners (“who & why”) -- Identification 2. The lack of duality in epistemological (IQ) and experiential (EQ) goals (“what & how”) – Instrumentation. Two research questions flow directly from the two research problems, which are investigated by the study. 1. Do Planner Personas raise students’ personal/emotional bond with human planners? (“who & why”) 2. Do Planner Personas improve students’ strategic marketing planning aptitude? (“what & how”)
220
The triangular Planner Persona learning objectives for marketing strategy case performance shown in Figure 2, balances “individual” student discovery from personal identification with “intuitive” human planners (EQ), with the logic of “instrumental” aptitude learned from strategic planning theory/analysis (IQ). Figure 2. Planner Persona Case Assignment Learning Objectives Triangle
Pe
MARKETING PLANNING APTITUDE
l na rs o
da go gic
Pe
al
YOU (“Individual”)
Professional ACADEMIC HEURISTIC PLANNING (“Instrumental”)
ACTUAL HUMAN PLANNER (“Intuition”)
The Planner Persona exploratory experiment generated positive outcomes for both objective strategic marketing planning performance (IQ) and subjective individual personal discovery (EQ). These findings directly address the research questions for the Planner Persona study. Student data supports course performance evaluation (Figure 3). Figure 3. Mean Scores from Preliminary Planner Persona Questionnaire Ratings of Planner Persona Influences (1 “low” 5 “high”; N = 40) Feeling Interested Functional Insight Future Interaction Facilitating Integrity 5 4.3 3.2 4.7
Total 4.3
Planner Personas extend the experiential learning literature stream in marketing education in a manner that combines personal emotional intelligence (EQ) and proven logical intelligence (IQ) instruction methods. Findings from this informal exploratory study and qualitative experiment lead to the conclusion that Planner Personas and the more prevalent consumer personas contribute viable pedagogical theories/techniques for improving marketing aptitude.
For further information contact: E. Vince Carter School of Business & Public Administration California State University, Bakersfield 9001 Stockdale Highway Bakersfield, CA 93311 (661) 654-6776
[email protected]
221
