Course Coordinator: Dr Atya Zeb

atya.zeb@adelaide.edu.au

Location: Nexus Tower – Room 10.45

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

This course is based around reading, critique and synthesis of scholarly publications. The required readings for this course will be specified by the weekly presenters in advance.

The course myuni website will be used for sharing key information and all written assessment must be submitted on myuni.

This course is delivered in face-to-face seminar form, typically 2 hours long. Students are expected to read specified journal articles and contribute to the discussion in the seminar.

Students are assessed on their preparation and contribution (see Assessment).

 

The University expects full-time students (i.e. those taking 12 units per semester) to devote a total of 48 hours per week to their studies. This means that you are expected to commit approximately 9 hours of private study outside of your regular classes. Students in this course are expected to attend all seminars throughout the semester.

Advanced Theory in Marketing is essentially a readings and discussion based course. As indicated in the Course Program, for each session in the course, the presenting lecturer has provided a list of recommended readings. Students should come along to each session prepared to summarise, and comment on their understanding of, what they have read for the session.

 

Date	Time (Adelaide time)	Room	Topic	Presenter
04/03	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	Introduction & writing a purpose statement	Dr. Dean Wilkie
11/03	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	Understanding theory, conceptual thinking and writing a conceptual argument	Prof. Jodie Conduit
18/03	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	TBD
25/03	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	Synthesising, critiquing, and presenting the literature	Prof. Carolin Plewa
01/04	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	Critical perspectives on consumption	Dr. Peter Sandiford
08/04	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	Service-dominant logic	Ged Lipnickas
Mid semester break
29/04	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	TBD
06/05	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	Customer engagement	Prof. Jodie Conduit
13/05	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	The role of theory in big data research	Dr. Dean Wilkie
20/05	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	Finishing your paper - argument flow and hypothesis development	Dr. Rebecca Dolan
03/06	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	Presentations	Dr. Dean Wilkie
01/06	9:00am – 12:00 pm	Lower Napier LG18	Presentations	Dr. Dean Wilkie

Assessment Task	Due	Weighting	Learning Outcome
Class Participation	All seminars	10%	LO 1, LO 2
Written Assignment	June 11th, 2023 - 11:59pm (Adelaide time)	60%	LO 1, LO 4, LO 5, LO 6
Seminar Presentation	June 4th, 2023	30%	LO 1, LO 2, LO 3, LO 4
TOTAL		100%

Students who fail to attend a seminar will be awarded a Zero (0) discussion mark for that seminar, apart from some cases of exceptional circumstances. Students who are absent from more than 5 seminars will have their final result withheld until a decision is made by the Program Director.

Class Participation

A mark for participation will be awarded based on the student’s contribution to the class discussions, along with evidence of preparation for these discussions. The aim is for the students to be able to distinguish between useful and less-useful articles for the purpose of building knowledge and understanding of a particular topic. The final seminar discussion mark will be determined at the end of the course, through a process of consultation with all course presenters, who will record the level of contribution from each student using the form in Appendix A.

Students are advised to answer the following questions prior to class. This will enable them to make more insightful contributions to the discussion:

·     What are the main arguments put forward in the article?

·     On which assumptions are these arguments based?

·     What is the article’s contribution to knowledge in its field of literature?

·      How do you assess the quality of the article’s theoretical framework?

·      How do you assess the quality of evidence provided for the article’s main arguments? (strengths & weaknesses of the           methodology)?

·     How do you assess the practical implications of the article? Would it help anyone make a business decision?

·     What are the overall strengths of the article? Why?

·     What don’t you like about the article? What can be done to improve its quality?

·     Is this one of the best/worst articles you have read? What score out of 10?

 
Conference Paper

By the end of May, students undertaking this course are expected to have selected one research topic that they will pursue for their dissertation. For this assignment, students write and submit a paper to an appropriate track of any of the three following conferences: the Australia and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC), the Australia and New Zealand Management Academy (ANZAM) and the European International Business Academy (EIBA). This assignment will be double-assessed by the student’s supervisor and another course presenter. The final mark will normally be based on the average of the two marks. If there is a significant difference in these marks (ie a difference greater than 10%), the course coordinator will arrange for moderation of the mark, normally inviting an additional member of the school to assess the paper.

The paper will be purely conceptual (as you will not have collected any empirical data of your own by this stage). For example, students may choose to write a mini critique/ literature review on the knowledge obtained from articles on their own research topic to date, highlighting limitations or gaps leading to an outline of opportunities for future research. Each paper must introduce and critically evaluate at least one recognized theory, demonstrating its relevance to their discipline AND planned research. Conceptual papers can have various approaches, though it is likely that (if planning a quantitative project) you will at least begin to consider possible propositions or hypotheses for testing. Alternatively (if planning a qualitative project), papers are likely to explore the possible implications for either research or practice of the theory(ies) that are reviewed; this might, for example, seek to apply a theory from a different disciplinary tradition or suggest questions that the theory raises that could help better understand a business context. Candidates should draw on their experience with the lecturer facilitated sessions when selecting, evaluating and questioning theory(ies) in their papers

Students can use headings and subheadings to assist the structure and flow of the arguments. The students should provide their own critical review and insights on what they have learned from these papers, by commenting on the nature of literature as well as research methodologies undertaken.   The maximum length of the manuscript is 10 page single-spacing, excluding references. In addition, the paper must adhere to the referencing style of the conference.

The paper will be assessed against the criteria specified by the conference requirements (these will be discussed during the course). Because of this, it is not possible to provide a detailed set of criteria or a marking rubrick (this is the case in a number of Honours level courses – indeed it is inevitable when evaluating scholarly research, given different disciplinary and philosophical norms and requirements.


Seminar
Chair and Presentation

Towards the end of the semester each student will prepare and deliver a short presentation, supporting their written paper (above). The presentations will, accordingly, introduce, explain and defend the main conceptual contribution of their paper. This presentation will follow the normal requirements of the conference specified (eg ANZAM) and will be strictly time constrained, with time for questions from other attendees.

Please note, the presentation does not require methodological discussion – it should focus on a theoretical and conceptual framework for research. Candidates also enrolled on Research Methodology should consider this as complementing the research proposal, not duplicating it.

Candidates will be assessed on:
- Content (relevance and application of theories)
- Answers to questions (how well questions were addressed)
- Communication (clarity of explanation, argument, visual aids etc)

Please submit written assignments on the MyUni website

Assignment Guidelines for Referencing
Referencing is critical to any assignment or report. Correct referencing is important because it identifies the source of the ideas and arguments that you present and helps to avoid the problem of plagiarism. the paper must adhere to the referencing style of the conference.


Return of Assignments and Feedback
Assignments will be returned to students within 4 weeks of the due date with written feedback. Students must not submit work for an assignment that has previously been submitted for this course or any other course without prior approval from the Course-Coordinator.


Late Assignment Submission
Students are expected to submit their work by the due date to maintain a fair and equitable system. A late assignment will be penalised by a 5 mark reduction for each day that it is late.