Marketing Track

The Marketing Track provides a more in-depth study of the science of Marketing as part of the B.S. in Business Administration. Honors students will have a unique opportunity to interact with professors in an intensive manner, and to engage in serious writing on their favorite issues in a more comprehensive and professional manner than the regular curriculum allows. As with the other tracks of the University Honors College, the Marketing Honors Track functions like a minor, offering a distinctive set of courses that adds breadth to and reinforces the major. While topics will be anchored in the world of business, they will have discussions rooted in theoretical traditions from a variety of social sciences (in particular economics, sociology, anthropology, and history).

Students in the Marketing Track will take Honors sections of fundamental courses in the College of Business, which will include sophisticated projects in Marketing and other topics. Students will then enroll in an Honors research methods seminar, and then a thesis course. All students in the Marketing Track will produce a final thesis or project under the guidance of a faculty mentor.

Who should apply?
Open to students of any major, provided they have completed pre-requisite classes, this track will be of particular interest to students in the Christos M. Cotsakos College of Business. The Track will be especially helpful to students seeking careers in law, management consulting, technology industries, and those who plan to apply to a quality MBA program. All students in the Track must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher.

How do I enroll?

For further information on this track, consult the coordinator, Dr. Raza Mir, Department of Marketing and Management Sciences, 973-720-3747 or mirr@wpunj.edu or call or email Jan Pinkston, at 973-720-3657, pinkstonj@wpunj.edu .

What courses will I take?

Track courses are usually taken in numerical sequence but, with the permission of the Program Director, students may modify the order in which they take the courses.

Principles of Management (Special Honors Section of MGT 200)
Prerequisite: Admission to the Marketing Honors Track

Principles of Marketing (Special Honors Section of MKT 210)
Prerequisite: Admission to Marketing Honors Track

Business Strategy and Policy (Special Honors Section of MGT 460)
Prerequisite: Admission to the Marketing Honors Track

Marketing Honors 401 – Honors Thesis I
This course represents the first part of a 6-credit Honors thesis, which must be conducted over two semesters and undertaken in the junior or senior year. It will be a core component of the Honors tracks in Marketing. Honors Thesis credits will be applied towards major concentration requirements.

MKT 401 comprises pedagogy relating to business research in Marketing. The student will cover topics relating to research methodology, theory building, a refresher on relevant analytic techniques and proposal writing. They will also learn to review and critique professional writing. The goal of MKT 401 is to help Honors students develop critical thinking skills and analytical capabilities that will help them execute an intensive and original research project in the subsequent semester.

Students will choose a suitable topic for their Honors Thesis in MKT 401. They will be required to develop a research proposal that identifies the basic research question, includes a sufficient literature review, and provides a detailed plan of research including timelines for completion. The Honors Thesis will be supervised by an academic mentor chosen from the full time faculty of the Department of Marketing and Management Sciences.

Prerequisites: MGT 200 – Honors, MKT 210- Honors, and MGT 460-Honors, or permission of the Program Director

Marketing Honors 402 – Honors Thesis II
This course represents the second part of a 6-credit Honors thesis, which must be conducted over two semesters and undertaken in the junior or senior year. It will be a core component of the Honors tracks in Marketing. Honors Thesis credits will be applied towards major concentration requirements.

MKT 402 involves the actual conduct of research by a student, following up from a proposal made by the student in MKT 401. Students fine tune and pretest their data collection instruments, collect relevant data, analyze it using qualitative/quantitative techniques, and write up their results in a paper that uses theory from Marketing and relevant disciplines in organizational studies and social sciences.

The goal of MKT 402 is to help Honors students learn to execute and present research, and practice their critical thinking skills and analytical capabilities that they were exposed to in MKT 401. The empirical study to be conducted in MKT 402 will be supervised by an academic mentor chosen from the full time faculty of the Department of Marketing and Management Sciences.

Prerequisites: MKT 401 or permission of the Program Director.

About the Track:
Faculty from the Department of Marketing and Management Sciences teach in this Track.

About the Program Director:
Professor Mir holds a doctorate from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management. His primary research interests include studying the transfer of knowledge across national boundaries in multinational corporations and studying issues relating to power and privilege in organizations. His publications include:

Mir, R. Marens, R. & Mir, A. (2008). The Corporation and Its Fragments: Corporate Citizenship and the Legacies Of Imperialism. In Andreas Scherer and Guido Palazzo (Eds.)The Handbook of Corporate Citizenship. London: Edward Elgar Press. pp. 819-852.

Mir, R. Mir, A. & Bapuji, H. (2007). Offshoring, Exit and Voice: Implications for Organizational Theory and Practice. Critical Perspectives on International Business, 3(3): 211-219.

Kashyap, R. Mir, R. & Iyer, E. (2006). ‘Toward a Responsive Pedagogy: Linking Social Responsibility to Firm Performance Issues in the Classroom,’ Academy of Management Learning and Education, 5 (3): 366-376.