Journal of Marketing Management, 2003,19, 883-904
Dawn Burton^
Leeds University Business School
Rethinking the UK System of Doctoral Training in Marketing There have been considerable changes in the system of doctoral education and training in the UK over the last decade. Despite the introduction of a range of ESRC initiatives, the UK marketing academy has been slow to actively debate this aspect of marketing education. This approach is different from that in the US where doctoral training practices in marketing have been widely debated by the AMA. The paper aims to fill this gap by critically assessing the UK system of doctoral training in marketing. The article begins with a brief overview of the historical development of postgraduate education and training in the UK in order to contextualise the subsequent discussion. Some of the most influential reports and policy documents over the last 40 years will be assessed, specifically in relation to how they have shaped, and continue to shape, ESRC policy and postgraduate education more generally in the UK. A critical evaluation of the existing research guidelines in marketing is undertaken and the need for more specific guidelines and a more wide-ranging and inclusive approach to the syllabus than is currently offered in many UK universities is proposed. The paper also explores the importance of staff expertise and critical mass in the context of delivering cost-effective, specialised provision. The article concludes by proposing new structures that marketing departments may wish to consider in delivering research training through the use of coalitions and the use of up-to-date developments in information technology.
Keywords: marketing education, doctoral training, critical theory, Research training, postgraduate research, marketing theory Introduction Over the last decade significant changes have occurred in policies goverrung the training of doctoral students in the Uruted Kingdom. Despite the 1 Correspondence: Dr Dawn Burton, Leeds University Business School, Maurice Keyworth Building, University Of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, Email:
[email protected], Telephone: 0113 233 2636 ISSN0267-257X/2003/7-8/000883 + 21 £8.00/0
©Westburn Publishers Ltd.
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considerable reforms the training of research students has not attracted significant attention among UK marketing academics if measured by the number of conference papers and published articles on this issue. To some extent this situation is not surprising, and reflects a bias towards a higher status awarded to the writing and publishing of papers that focus on basic and applied research, rather than marketing education (Straughan and Albers-Miller, 2000). This said, it needs to be acknowledged that the system of research training in the US has attracted a significant amount of attention from prominent marketing academics. Indeed in the late 1980s, the American Marketing Association (AMA) commissioned a thorough review of research training practices, which resulted in a significant number of recommendations being made (Tybout, 1987). US academics have also explored the socialisation of doctoral students in marketing and varying orientations towards research training in different institutional contexts (Trocchia and Berkowitz, 1999). The purpose of this paper is to argue that research trairung should be given a higher profile among marketing academics in the UK. It is particularly timely that marketing academics take the opporturuty to rethink research trairung provision, since some of the more recent initiatives in the configuration of the PhD developed by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), will result in the UK directly competing with the well established system in the US, of a formalised period of trairung in the first year of doctoral program and a further three years focusing on the substantive content of the thesis. In a highly competitive, global marketplace for doctoral students, the quality of research training provision could become a source of competitive advantage for market-led marketing departments. US research has demonstrated that doctoral students can be pretty savvy about choosing the best institution to meet their needs (Webb et al., 1997). There is no reason to presume that the HE sector in the UK will be exempt from students shopping around for the best deal. The converse position is that departments that fail to provide high quality, relevant training programmes could lose potential students. The ability to compete effectively in a global marketplace for doctoral students is important in the UK, where more than 60 per cent of doctoral students in business and management are from overseas (Burgess et al., 1998). The paper begins with a brief overview of the historical development of postgraduate education and training in the UK in order to contextualise the subsequent discussion. Some of the most influential reports and policy documents over the last 40 years will be assessed, specifically in relation to how they have shaped, and continue to shape, ESRC policy and postgraduate education more generally in the UK. The second section of the paper will include a critical evaluation of the suitability of the existing
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research guidelines in marketing. The need for more specific guidelines and a more wide-ranging and inclusive approach to the syllabus than is currently offered in many UK universities will be discussed. A third theme of the paper relates to the two issues of academic expertise and critical mass. Increasingly specialised guidelines will require staff with specialist expertise to teach advanced marketing modules. It is not clear that the required expertise is available in sufficient numbers within institutions that supervise research students. A related factor is the existence of a critical mass of students in the context of delivering cost-effective, specialised provision. The final section of the paper proposes new structures that marketing departments may wish to consider in delivering research training through the use of coalitions and the use of up-to-date developments in information technology.
Historical Development of Postgraduate Education and Training in the UK The development of postgraduate education and training in the UK has been the subject of considerable change over the last forty years. In 1963, the Robbins Report identified the expansion of postgraduate work as a necessary development to supply teachers for a rapidly expanding system of higher education and to provide skills that were in short supply in the economy. Despite acknowledging the importance of the PhD, and PhD students in advanced, societies, Robbins was critical of the relatively narrow focus of most doctoral theses and recommended the inclusion of 'training by formal instruction and seminars'. A further suggestion was that students should not be dependant on one supervisor for intellectual stimulation and training. Twenty years later the Association of British Research Council's Report of the Working Party on Postgraduate Education (Swinnerton-Dyer Report, 1982) argued that labour market information and employment trends should be taken into account when granting ESRC awards and studentships. A related consideration was the knowledge and skills that doctoral students would possess on completion of their studies and the contribution these skills would make to industry and commerce. A much stronger link between industry and commerce was proposed in addition to the suggestion that potential 'users' of academic research should be included on research council committees. The concerns of the Robbins and Swinnerton-Dyer Report were subsequently reflected in the Government White Paper, 'Realising Our Potential: A Strategy for Science and Technology' published in 1993. The Report revealed a concern that the content of PhDs did not always match the needs of careers beyond academic and academic-related research. It too
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recommended closer ties between industry and academia through giving a higher profile to research training. Among other things, the Report proposed the launch of a new degree comprising a one year research masters (M.Res) followed by a three year doctorate. The aim of the proposed initiative was to provide a more substantial structure for research trairung, and to promote a greater degree of relevance in postgraduate work with respect to the user community. Economic and Social Research Council policy that shapes research training and operates a system of accreditation for institutions in the UK, has established and revised a series of Guidelines since 1991 that have reflected the national debate on postgraduate education and training. These Guidelines superseded the first guides to best practice in research training issued in the late 1980s which were taken from the practices adopted by the Science and Engineering Research Council. Successive revisions of the Economic and Social Research Council's guidelines have acted as a framework which institutions with ESRC research students have adopted via a process of accreditation. Many other institutions without ESRC recognition or studentships have viewed the Guidelines as a kite-mark of quality and have also brought their own research training within the ESRC's remit (Burton, 2000). The 1991 ESRC 'Guidelines on the Provision of Research Training for Postgraduate Research Students in the Social Sciences' required students to spend 60 per cent of their first year research training activities, comprising core/generic training that all social scientists were required to complete, and subject specific training. The generic element was a cost effective way of delivering a common programme of training that met the needs of all new research students in the social sciences since staff could be pooled from across the social sciences to deliver the most advanced training available within institutions. In 1991 the generic programme of research training included: basic tools of the researcher, research design and strategy, ethical and legal issues, writing, presentation and publication skills. Students often benefited from this cross-faculty/disciplinary approach since they were exposed to a wide range of methodological approaches and staff expertise. An additional benefit was that students had the opportunity to meet other social scientists at the same stage in their research careers, and could interact and exchange experiences thus reducing feelings of isolation. Indeed generic research methods training of this nature contributed towards the development of Graduate Schools in some universities. Subject specific training was developed out of a recognition that broadly based research training suitable for all social scientists needed to be complemented by more in-depth provision that focused on the methodological traditions and practices of the student's chosen discipline. In
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1991, the ESRC's subject specific research training guidelines for marketing students were delivered under the broad heading of management and business studies. Two areas of training were identified: philosophy of the social sciences, and theory and method comprising management principles (a broad course on the fundamentals of management knowledge using case studies of research in functional areas such as finance, marketing and accounting), and a range of methods based provision including experimental methods, quantitative methods, qualitative methods, action research, measurement, data generation, and analysis. By 2000 the ESRC's Guidelines (3^'
