Courses

• GSM MG 700: Ethical and Global Foundations
  This experience, delivered during the pre-semester, will deliver ethical and global foundations which provide students a broad exposure to concepts that will be applied throughout the MBA experience. The foundation contains two courses. First, an intensive three day course - Ethics, Values, and Responsibility -- is designed to lay a conceptual foundation, introduce frameworks, provide a common language for ethics and ethical decision-making, and provoke awareness of one's values and ethical frontier to help guide principled thought and analysis. Second, Global Foundations will expose students to the complexities of operating in a global environment, discuss challenges associated with globalization, consider strategic factors when approaching global business problems, gain understating of global institutions, and provide a foundation on approaching country contexts. Synergies across both courses will emerge to provide students a strong foundation as they enter their core coursework.
• GSM MG 790: Ethical Leadership in a Global Economy
  Ethical Leadership in a Global Economy will provide students with a unique 2nd year learning experience on how the global economy is transforming economic sectors, presenting new risks, calling forth innovation, and challenging traditional values and norms. Through engagement with select firms, governmental, and civil society organizations, students will develop an appreciation of how new realities challenge traditional business integrity, strategy, and values in the global economy. Course projects and content will include both sector and functional based experiences. This course will provide opportunity for students to apply concepts which have been building through the pre-term, core, and professional skills courses.
• GSM MK 723: Marketing Management
  This course provides a practical understanding of how business strategies and tactics are driven by marketing's dual focus on customers and competition. Students will learn how to leverage marketing tools and emerging technologies in the creation (e.g., customer insight, product and service design, branding), delivery (e.g., communication and distribution), and capture (e.g., pricing, customer life time value) of marketplace value. Across business contexts including B2C, B2B, products versus services, global versus domestic markets, small/medium/large organizations, for-profit versus social enterprises, the course builds the fundamental skills involved in analyzing market challenges and opportunities and making decisions for the formulation and implementation of successful and sustainable marketing programs.
• GSM MK 724: Marketing Management
  This course builds an in-depth understanding of basic marketing concepts and applies those concepts to a variety of management situations, including non-profit and public sector settings. The course provides working knowledge of the tools of marketing (product policy, pricing, distribution, promotion, consumer behavior), and the ways in which these tools can be usefully employed. The course builds practical skills in analyzing marketing problems and opportunities, and in developing marketing programs.
• GSM MK 841: Data-Driven Market Development
  Because companies face constant pressure to develop markets -- both existing and new -- to feed demands for growth, we propose a course that would equip MBA students with a nimble yet robust approach to identify, quantify and leverage opportunities that facilitate growth. This course proposal comprises experiential "modules" that are based on real-world scenarios designed in collaboration with corporate executive partners (e.g., BU alumni, recruiters, major area employers, network contacts). Modules pose growth challenges partners have experienced in the sectors of (1) healthcare and pharmaceuticals, (2) digital, (3) retail and (4) consumer-packaged goods.
• GSM MK 845: Social Media Marketing
  Social technology is continuously transforming the way consumers interact with each other and firms. Because of these changes, consumers have greater opportunity to voice their opinions and connect with other consumers and as well as increased influence over marketers and brands. This course covers the implications of the evolution of communication on marketing strategy in the new landscape where traditional and digital media coexist and interact. In this course, we examine how organizations capitalize on social media and these consumer-to-consumer interactions to support their marketing efforts. Specifically, we'll examine how this new technology can be used to (a) listen to consumers and monitor their behavior; (b) reach specific groups of consumers with messages via a variety of social media channels; (c) deliver content that draws consumers to the organization and to each other and motivates them to act; (d) effectively distributes content to a target audience; and (e) tracks the effectiveness of these efforts. We will particularly focus on the social aspect of social media and how social influence drives behavior. Because the pace of change in this area is so fast, we will challenge ourselves to look toward the future and predict where we think the field will go over the next five years. Throughout the course we will focus on 1) linking strategy and tactics and 2) measuring results. We will use a hands-on approach in examining these topics.
• GSM MK 849: Debiasing Decision Making
  The objective of this course is to inform future managers, consultants, and advisors of the psychological processes and biases underlying the decisions made by customers, competitors, colleagues, and themselves, with emphasis on how to incorporate such insights into marketing and business strategies. Applications of these processes and biases will be examined within the domains of the sustainability and health sectors. The course will provide students with a broad overview of important results from various behavioral sciences (e.g., behavioral decision research, cognitive and social psychology, behavioral economics, consumer research) that demonstrate the several biases that can affect the quality of our strategic decisions. It is intended to provide students with knowledge about applying these findings to topics in marketing, strategic management, and organizational behavior. Classroom time will be devoted to a combination of lectures, discussions, cases, and exercises illustrating the main concepts.
• GSM MK 852: Marketing Analytics
  This course will focus on developing marketing strategies driven by marketing analytics. Topics covered include market segmentation, targeting, and positioning, new product test marketing, market response models, customer profitability, social media, and marketing resource allocation. The course will draw on and extend students' understanding of issues related to quantitative analysis and principles of marketing. The course will use a combination of cases, lectures, simulations, and a hands-on project to develop these skills.
• GSM MK 853: Global Strategic Marketing
  This course focuses on the key strategic marketing decisions managers must make: deciding whether to market globally; selecting countries in which to market; choosing marketing strategies and tactics for entry and growth; and organizing for and managing the implementation of global marketing strategies.
• GSM MK 854: Branding
  This is a course about branding, and the ways that brands acquire and sustain value in the marketplace. The course is embedded in sociological, anthropological, and psychological theories of consumer behavior and culture, and relies on these disciplines for insight into effective strategic management of the brand. The cases, readings, in-class discussions, and assignments are designed to provide you with: an understanding of brands as co-creations of consumers, marketers, and cultures, and brand management as a collaborative process of meaning management; a sound foundation in consumer-brand behavior; and a capacity to think creatively and with increased precision about the strategies and tactics involved in building, leveraging, defending, and sustaining strong brands. Select topics we will cover include brand (re)positioning, brand design, brand community, product placements and grassroots marketing, internal branding, brand relationships, brand architecture, brand leverage and extensions, brand metrics, and brand stewardship. A group brand planning project weaves content throughout the course; individual write-ups allow you to explore select branding topics in more detail. Several guest speakers from the branding services, consulting, and practice sides will provide their insights throughout the course.
• GSM MK 855: Internet Marketing
  This course will explore the influence of the Internet, The World Wide Web and the digital world on marketing. The important topics to be covered in the course include: Business to Consumer, Business to Business, Business Models, Agents, Trust, Advocacy, Customization, Technology, Branding, Privacy, The Shopping Experience, Bricks-and-Mortar and Web Coordination, and Venture Capital. Given the fast pace of e-commerce, this list is subject to change. Course activities will include readings (e.g., textbook, cases, articles), class discussions, guest speakers, engaging the World Wide Web, And team projects.
• GSM MK 856: Consumer Behavior
  In order to successfully implement strategy, marketers need to understand their consumers ? who they are, what they want, how they make decisions, and how their behavior is influenced by marketers? actions. This course will cover topics such as the role of culture, psychological processes (e.g. motivation, perception, memory, attitudes, etc.) and marketplace behaviors (e.g. in retail settings, online, post-purchase, etc.). We will also look at such marketing concepts as segmentation strategy, value-based pricing, brand equity, new product adoption, and customer relationship management. The course involves a team project focused on discovering an unmet consumer need and designing a product and marketing plan to address that need.
• GSM MK 857: Service Marketing Management
  This course takes both a practical and conceptual approach to the marketing of services. The marketing literature views quality as being defined by customer expectations and perceptions. This course looks at key components of services that affect these expectations and perceptions as well as issues of demand management; developing systems that address custom problem solving and complaint management; and the overlap between operational, organizational, behavioral, and marketing issues in service management. The focus of the course varies by class to include professional services, small service, large service organizations and businesses that produce services as a key and necessary line extension to products that they produce.
• GSM MK 858: Customer Relationship Management
  The course is designed to give students a working knowledge of the concepts and practices of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The course will emphasize management of the customer experience and how to modify customer behavior using CRM. Key CRM components will be explored, including: database marketing, campaign management, marketing channels - including social media, marketing technology, marketing planning and measurement, and pricing. Instruction will be a combination of lectures, class discussion, cases, group activities, and guest lecturers
• GSM MK 859: Business Marketing
  This course provides an in-depth understanding of the unique aspects of marketing in a business-to-business environment. Students apply current marketing theory and techniques to industrial market settings. In addition, they develop managerial skills in the marketing planning and execution process, as well as critical analysis and problem-solving abilities with respect to marketing working relationships. The course allows participants to experiment with and apply strategic marketing concepts in a complex industrial marketing environment. Topics covered include the dynamics of relationships between suppliers and customers, the increasing reliance on the Marketing-R&D interface, the structuring of alliances between so-called competitors, and the process of negotiations-all in order to better understand how organizations endeavor to become and stay market-oriented. [Lectures, cases, guest speskers, interactive marketing simulation.]
• GSM MK 860: Integrated Marketing Communication
  The aim of this course is to provide you with an understanding of the strategic issues surrounding marketing communication, of which advertising is but one vehicle. We will be focusing on Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC), which involves using a variety of tools (e.g. advertising, sales promotion, public relations, etc.) in a synergistic manner to achieve communication objectives. Students will learn IMC principles and practices and then develop an IMC campaign from situation analysis to strategy development and implementation. The ultimate objective of this course is to enable students to understand and operate within the advertising industry from either a client or agency perspective.
• GSM MK 864: Pricing Strategy and Tactics
  This course focuses on the practical needs of the marketing manager making pricing decisions. Students learn the techniques of strategic analysis necessary to price more profitably by evaluating the price sensitivity of buyers, determining relevant costs, anticipating and influencing competitors' pricing and formulating an appropriate pricing strategy.
• GSM MK 867: Marketing Social Change
  Globalization, increasing transparency in business operations and the prevalence of social media have forever changed the way stakeholders view and interact with organizations. Societal and business imperatives are not only often considered compatible; they can be increasingly viewed as one and the same. People today often communicate, organize and engage based on mutual interests, and, generally, place greater trust in organizations and individuals that work for a better world. Marketing has often been referred to as the "science of sales." Whether you are selling a product, an intervention or an idea, it can be a powerful tool for advancing social change in today's dynamic environment. The strategic integration of a relevant social purpose into a product, business or nonprofit organization through brand-building citizenship activities can drive consumer and donor recall, consideration, acquisition, retention and propensity to recommend. However, these efforts do not usually constitute a "silver bullet" and may not be the best solution to a business problem or societal need at all. In the worst cases, ill-conceived citizenship marketing strategies can result in damaging consequences. Practitioners must be pragmatic when engaging in marketing social change. Understanding how to apply best practice, identify opportunities, address challenges, engage stakeholders and innovate strategically are essential skills in this rapidly evolving sector. The purpose of this course is to provide students with an in-depth understanding of how marketing principles can be applied to create both short-term and lasting social change. Students will explore dimensions of the modern landscapes of brand, corporate and nonprofit "citizenship" and how they relate to marketing. Areas of study include: cause-related marketing and cause branding; nonprofit branding and social movements, as well as corporate social responsibility and shared value creation. This class is taught by Kristian Darigan Merenda. Professor Merenda holds a BS in Marketing from Providence College and an MBA from Boston University. She is an author and award-winning consultant to Fortune 250 corporations and leading NGOs in their efforts to deliver mutually beneficial solutions for their business and society. If you have questions about the course, you can contact Professor Merenda directly at merenda@bu.edu or kristian.merneda@edelman.com.
• GSM MK 914: Seminar in Consumer Behavior
  This course is designed to familiarize students with the current major theoretical streams of research in consumer behavior. It is meant to instill in the student not only a knowledge of the current "state of the art" in consumer behavior research, but also an ability to apply behavioral science theory to consumer behavior research issues. It is expected that students will develop and refine the ability both to critically evaluate the theoretical contribution of articles in consumer behavior and to formulate theory-based hypotheses capable of advancing the discipline's understanding of consumer behavior.
• GSM MK 927: Marketing Management and the Customer-Focused Firm
  This course will familiarize doctoral students with various areas of investigation for problem-oriented academic marketing research pertinent to the research mission of the department: advancing the customer-focused firm. Discussion topics include but are not limited to the following strategies for gaining strategic advantage through the cultivation of marketing relationships: branding and brand equity, pricing, sales, customer relationship management and CRM, consumer-company identification, corporate social responsibility, consumer-to-consumer relationships and brand communities, retailing and customer service, product innovation, and product launch strategy. Through exposure to a strategic marketing perspective for the identification of research problem areas, this course will further socialize students into the process of developing research ideas and undertaking research, while stimulating the development of ideas for summer projects, qualifying papers, and dissertations.

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