PhD Degree Program in Marketing

Marketing is fundamentally concerned with the description and prediction of decision outcomes involving all aspects of the firm that relate to its customers, competitors, distributors, and business regulators. Interest in description and prediction, in turn, is associated with the improvement of marketing decision making.

Marketing is an interdisciplinary field that draws upon theory and methodology from a wide variety of sources, including psychology, sociology, mathematics, statistics, and economics. Recent developments in the field include new methods and theories for understanding buyers’ perceptions and preferences, probabilistic choice models, models for allocating marketing resources,  econometric analysis of large data bases, and micro-economic models for marketing strategy.

The Wharton School’s Marketing Department has had a long tradition in the development of new research methodologies and the successful implementation of new decision models and techniques in the practice of marketing.

Information Sessions about Admissions for 2025

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OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAM

The program’s specific objectives are:

• To provide an interdisciplinary environment for the generation of creative ideas in marketing;
• To provide sufficient analytic skills for evaluation (and implementation) of these ideas, i.e., critical insight;
• To provide training in the communication of these ideas to others; and
• To encourage a type of cumulative contribution to the marketing field by a process of learning how to learn, i.e., the strategy of scholarly inquiry.

These objectives are implemented by means of a varied program of seminars, joint research projects, and colloquia.

DEGREE REQUIREMENTS

The Wharton Doctoral Programs consist of two distinct phases: pre-candidacy and candidacy. In general, during the pre-candidacy phase the student completes

• the required coursework
• preliminary examinations
• any requirements imposed by the student’s specific Department or Program such as additional qualifying examinations and research papers.

Upon satisfying all of these requirements, the student applies in writing to their Department Ph.D. Faculty Coordinator for admission to candidacy. The Coordinator will review the student’s record and make a recommendation to the Vice Dean. Upon approval by the Vice Dean, the student is admitted to candidacy.

The candidacy phase comprises

• preparation and defense of the dissertation proposal
• doctoral dissertation
• final defense of the dissertation

CANDIDACY REQUIREMENTS

The following are the specific requirements for the Marketing Department.

Before admission to candidacy, the student is required to:

1. Complete the required 15* credit units of graduate level courses as described in detail in the Coursework section below. (*Students entering the program before Fall 2019 need to complete 17 credit units.)
2. Take and pass the Marketing Qualifying Examination offered at the end of the first year.
3. Complete a faculty-supervised First Year Research Paper due September 1, before the start of the second year.
4. Complete a faculty-supervised Second Year Research Paper due September 1, before the start of the third year, and present it in a faculty seminar in their third year.
5. Declare primary advisor(s) by December 15 of the third year.
6. Form and declare a dissertation committee by May 15 of the third year.
7. Prepare and defend a dissertation proposal by September 15 at the start of the 4th year.

COURSEWORK

• The Ph.D. program in marketing is based on the completion of the dissertation as well as a minimum of fifteen graduate level course units.
• These courses assume that the student has a basic knowledge of various business areas, computer programming, calculus, and matrix algebra.
• Of the 15 course units, a maximum of 4 can consist of transfer courses for graduate work at other universities with approval of the Department’s PhD Coordinator.
• In addition, only 2 of the 15 course units can be independent study courses.
• Courses are taken from the following categories: