A double Duck collaboration has garnered the elite distinction of Highly Commended paper in the 2015 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence.
Coauthored by Oregon Executive MBA director and Professor Emeritus of Marketing David Boush, "Why, How, and To What Effect Do Firms Deviate from Their Intended Marketing Plans? Towards a Taxonomy of Post-Plan Improvisations," is based on the dissertation of coauthor and former student Peter S. Whalen, PhD '08.
"So this is a case of helping Pete with his research program," Boush explained.
It is also an example of the type of collaborative research our faculty members undertake with PhD students—and the type of collaboration that a recent gift from Roger and Robin Best to our business PhD program seeks to reward.
Boush said that the paper addresses the ways firms depart from their marketing plans, the circumstances that cause them to change, and the kinds of departures that are more or less successful.
"Just about everyone agrees that it's a good idea to plan, and everyone knows plans often have to change," Boush said. "So the paper tries to answer basic questions that everyone can understand."
Even with the familiar subject matter, there were some potentially surprising results.
"One interesting finding was that changes that result from external forces are more likely to be successful than those caused by internal decisions to change course," he said.
While marketing PhD program coordinator, Boush helped to recruit Whalen, who would later become his coauthor. Whalen took Boush's marketing strategy seminar, and Boush served as Whalen's PhD dissertation advisor.
Whalen was with the Daniels College of Business marketing department at the University of Denver when collaborating on the paper, and he is now clinical associate professor of entrepreneurship at Pennsylvania State University.
Whalen and Boush's paper is published in the European Journal of Marketing.