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Academic Research

MDT has a vibrant research community that publishes in top tier journals and through internationally and interdisciplinary conference proceedings. The Academy has a particularly strong Post-Doctoral and PhD programme where students contribute to the community through their research projects and through the School of Business Doctoral Seminars. With over 20 marketing faculty members, the academy has a broad range of marketing specialisms and has experts located in most areas of marketing studies.

Core researchers have published in a wide variety of international conferences, books and refereed journals such as European Journal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, journal of business research, Journal of Consumer Behaviour to name but a few

Within the context of Marketing and Digital Transformation, the Academy has a number of key research areas:

Consumer Behaviour

This theme feature research that offers insight into how consumers behave and how firms can better understand this behaviour. As consumer behaviour cuts across numerous disciplines such as marketing, psychology, economics and media, research in this thematic focuses on understanding decision making, attitudes, motivations and other psychological factors that influence how consumer behave and how firms understand and react to behaviours. Within this thematic area Academy researchers have and continue to develop academic and applied research projects in the following areas:

  • Consumer motivation in decision making and consumption practices.
  • Consumer socialisation
  • Consumer identify, gender consumption, body image and well-being
  • Consumer culture
  • Customer engagement, customer journey management 

Business to Business Marketing

MDT has a long research lineage within the business-to-business marketing domain and its researchers are exploring a wide range of related topics in an effort to understand and explain how business-to-business markets operate. Within this thematic area Academy researchers have and continue to develop academic and applied research projects in the following areas:

  • Marketing Theory: including resource based view of the firms, resource dependence, dynamic capabilities, social exchange, network analysis etc- and how they apply to contemporary formulation of business marketing strategy and business market functions.
  • B2B for SMEs: much of marketing research and theory relates to B2B between large corporations but very little directed at the SME for which a lot of current theory is not appropriate.
  • Data driven marketing: Realising the promise of analytics for improved targeting, lead management (e.g. crm) and decision making
  • Relationship marketing: social and economic analysis of B2B relationships (e.g. collaboration, trust, communication, conflict resolution and restoration,
  • Marketing Organisations: Internal marketing; cross functional integration between R&D and Marketing (e.g. user involvement); decision making
  • Business Networks: interpersonal and organisational relational variables and norms surrounding and underpinning network development, maintenance, management, structures
  • International/Global B2B Marketing: Emerging Markets, Culture
  • Selling and Sales management; Role; channel; structures

Digitized Markets and the Connected Consumers

Digital marketing and ecommerce has become a mainstream topic within marketing, and yet it is still a relative unexplored and green field area for researchers. Bridging this knowledge gap, MDT researchers are exploring a wide range of contemporary issues such as:

  • Digital marketing strategies
  • Data driven marketing, data protection and privacy, data generation and utilisation
  • Digital platforms and applications
  • New digitised consumer behaviours and its effect on organisations marketing strategy
  • Marketing in digital environments

Services Marketing

MDT has a particular strong research focus on services marketing across a wide range of service related and cross-functional topics, including service marketing, service management, service science, service innovation, service operations, service technology and e-service, service design and transformative service. Within this thematic area Academy researchers have and continue to develop academic and applied research projects in the following areas:

  • Service Strategy
  • Service Innovation and Design Thinking
  • Servitization, service infusion, and solutions
  • Customer Experience Management
  • Measuring and optimizing service performance and impact
  • Service leadership and culture,
  • Service recovery and complaint management,
  • Technology and data driven services

Branding and Reputation Management

Over the last decade, branding has emerged as a top research priority in the marketing discipline due to the increased awareness and realisation amongst executives and academics that the brand is one of the most valuable assets that a firm possesses. MDT researchers have and continue to explore many branding topics in recent years which have generating top-tier journal and conference publications:

  • Brand Positioning; Brand intangible, brand personality
  • Brand Relationships. Exploring the personal component of the relationship between a brand and its customers.
  • Brand experience
  • Corporate Image and Reputation.
  • International Brand Management
  • Persuasion Tactics on Consumer Responses to Private Label Brands
  • Assessing Brand Performance
  • Brand Management