MARKETING CURRICULUM DESIGN AND CAREER OUTCOMES

ABSTRACT

Undergraduate marketing degrees have been shown to have the same impact on post-graduation income for marketing jobs as non-marketing undergraduate degrees for similar marketing jobs. Moreover, having a marketing degree has been shown to not impact long-term career satisfaction. However, previous research has not accounted for the possible differential impact of curriculum design on post-graduation income and long-term career satisfaction. In other words, not all marketing programs are the same. In this paper, we describe an innovative yearlong marketing honors program that uses six best practices drawn from the marketing education literature in its design and implementation. We then compare the starting salaries after college and current career satisfaction of graduates from the marketing honors program with those of graduates from a non-honors marketing program in the same university. We demonstrate the differential impact of course-level, programmatic, and extra-curricular design choices on career outcomes. Implications are then discussed that impact marketing curriculum design.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Not every high-achieving marketing senior at our university applies to join the IME Honors program. Also, the IME Honors programs admits students with GPAs lower than 3.7. Similarly, there are students with GPAs higher than 3.7 that do not join the IME Honors program. We address this topic in our Limitations section and thank the reviewers for emphasizing this point..

² Over the period of this study, it has not always been the same professor that was common to the three courses. There have been three different professors that were the “common” professor for the three courses. Finally, the four faculty members involved with the IME program have also changed over the period of the study.

³ Each year, client companies are drawn from either faculty networks or then from the highly engaged IME Honors alumni network. While at times, companies insist on returning for successive years, we try and find new clients each year to continuously increase awareness of the IME Honors program in the business community. Client companies have been known to often hire IME Honors graduates for both internships as well as full-time jobs.

⁴ The software used in the courses and the client projects has changed over the years as have the required certifications. Previously, we used a lot more of Excel but now have moderated Excel use with the addition of SPSS, Claritas, Qualtrics, and Euromonitor Passport. Even these choices could change. For example, we plan to incorporate Google Trends and automated text analysis in the upcoming year.

⁵ The IME program does not consume additional university resources as compared to the RMKT program. Faculty teaching in the IME program do so as part of their in-load teaching and are not compensated additionally. All students in the IME program complete the program as part of their graduation requirements and do not need additional courses to complete their requirements for graduation as compared to RMKT students. All the forms of curricular and extra-curricular practices incorporated in the IME program are available for use to faculty and students involved in the RMKT program. It’s the creative leveraging of time and available university and alumni resources that truly differentiates the IME program from the RMKT program.

⁶ We do not have data from comparable RMKT exit surveys because these have very low response rates leading to questionable data quality. Both IME and RMKT students, however, do take the common marketing core classes which are a prerequisite for either program. These core classes are taught in a format that mirrors of that of the RMKT program. Thus, IME students are exposed to 4 classes in the common marketing core that give them an understanding of the RMKT format (lack of integration, high flexibility, etc.). In study 2, IME students thus have some basis for comparing their IME experience to their RMKT experience.

⁷ The ANCOVA analysis was run both with logarithmic value of starting salary as well as actual starting salary as dependent variables. No difference in results was found. In order to enable ease of interpretation, we only report the analysis run with actual starting salary as dependent variable.