MKTG603-14S2 (C) Semester Two 2014

Advanced Consumer Behaviour

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 14 July 2014
End Date: Sunday, 16 November 2014
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 25 July 2014
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 10 October 2014

Description

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to advanced consumer behaviour and research, and for students to develop the ability to integrate the various theories and research findings presented.

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to recent research on technology and consumption. Many different technologies are transforming consumer behaviour from shopping to methods of payments.  The first goal of this course is for students to gain an understanding about the relationships between technologies and consumer behaviour. This will be accomplished through a review of relevant literature. As the readings will reveal, there are a variety of research methodologies adopted by various authors.  The second goal is for each student to develop a research proposal to investigate a selected topic in greater depth.  The knowledge gained in this area can act as a stepping-stone for your own future research endeavours.  It is specially designed for those students who are interested in pursuing a research agenda in future graduate and post-graduate endeavours.  Therefore, the course will focus on multiple theoretical and methodological issues but also involve a significant "hands-on" component as well.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course students should be able to:

 Demonstrate an understanding of the varied ways technologies are transforming consumer behaviours;
 Constructively read and decipher research articles and papers in the field;
 Elaborate a research design based on a predefined research problem;
 Develop a research instrument;
 Collect and analyse the data;
 Write a journal-style article presenting the research.

Prerequisites

Subject to approval of the Head of Department

Restrictions

MGMT423

Equivalent Courses

MGMT423

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Ekant Veer

Guest Lecturer

Professor Ruby R. Dholakia (University of Rhode Island)

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Class Presentations 25% Class Presentations
Term Project 75% Term Project


Your grade is based on your involvement in class and the project's quality. Keep in mind the following points. First, thorough weekly preparations and participation are expected. Articles are recommended for reading every week. Each article will have been pre-assigned to student(s) responsible for leading a discussion on that article and providing a one-page abstract for distribution in class. Second, a short presentation of your term project is required during the last week of class.

It is important that you do each week's readings in advance of that week's seminar meeting so that you can participate in an informed discussion in that meeting. The student(s) responsible for a given article, as the reviewer, is not expected to lead a formal discussion; rather, the entire group is responsible for discussion on any set of readings. A set of readings will be assigned for each week, and class discussion will focus on an in-depth analysis of the material. You should be fully prepared to discuss any assigned topic or individual paper.

Class time will also be used to work on the main projects from the beginning. Given the ambitious objective of completing the research project from design to analysis within twelve weeks, I will work closely with groups and/or individuals on a weekly basis. We will use the projects as a learning mechanism for the whole class in the process.

Term project
The major assignment is the design and implementation of a research study on online consumer behaviour.  The research question can be of your own choice but must be pre-approved by the Ekant first.  You should provide a literature review on your topic to justify that your research question is of academic interest.  Readings from a previous course may have stimulated your interest in further developing a given topic.  In any case, you need to have your research question finalised by week three to be able to proceed with the next steps in time.  By the end of the first six weeks, you should have completed your research design.  In the second 6 weeks, you need to carry out the data collection and analysis for your chosen topic.  

The final research project will be written up in a similar form to that of a journal article.  You will need to justify the appropriateness of the topic being studied, an analysis of the extant literature, the chosen methodology, the analysis of collected data, findings and finally, the discussion.

Textbooks / Resources

All readings consist of articles and/or chapter excerpts culled from scientific journals and other publications.  A copy of the reading material for the course will be made available as we progress through the course via the course LEARN site.

Notes

Departmental Academic Policies The Department assumes that you have read this document.

You should also read the General Course and Examination Regulations

Dishonest Practice
The University of Canterbury considers cheating and plagiarism to be serious acts of dishonesty.  All assessed work must be your own individual work unless specifically stated otherwise in the assessment guidelines. Material quoted from any other source must be clearly acknowledged. You must not copy the work of another person (student or published work) in any assessment including examinations, tests and assignments. Any person, who is found to have copied someone else's work, or to have allowed their work to be copied, will receive a fail grade for that piece of assessment and may face disciplinary action which may lead to a fine, community service or exclusion from the university.

IMPORTANT: Where there are concerns regarding the authorship of written course work, a student can be required to provide a formal, oral explanation of the content of their work.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $847.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Management, Marketing and Tourism .

All MKTG603 Occurrences

  • MKTG603-14S2 (C) Semester Two 2014