No abstract

In the aggregate, marketing may be conceptualized as the process of offering creative solutions to consumer problems. As such, educational emphasis should be given to increasing students’ knowledge of the creative problem-solving (CPS) process. Unfortunately, past research has given little attention to the CPS process itself. The purpose of this article is to better familiarize marketing educators with the CPS process and its connection to marketing practice. In addition, an instructional approach is offered that employs the use of assorted CPS techniques in conjunction with different stages of the CPS process.

This paper investigates consumer sophistication and its role in the development of proactive public policy. Consumer sophistication is examined in light of several historical shifts in market structure and consumer lifestyles. These shifts create market conditions that foster the emergence of a “Corporate Dilemma” in which unsophisticated consumers reward unethical business practices and punish ethical business behavior. To reduce unethical business practices in the market, this paper proposes that the optimum level of interim government intervention should be based on the level of consumer sophistication in the market.

This study presents a detailed analysis outlining the differences between the decision-making activities of marketing and nonmarketing business students. The results reveal the presence of important decisional differences and similarities with respect to students' information-gathering activities, consideration sets, alternative evaluations, self-perceptions, timing, and stability of the decision.

Despite the increasing importance of personal creativity in today's business environment, few conceptual creativity frameworks have been presented in the marketing education literature. The purpose of this article is to advance the integration of creativity instruction into marketing classrooms by presenting an applied creative marketing framework. The theoretical basis for the creativity framework, referred to as the creative marketing breakthrough model, is discussed along with its pedagogical implications for marketing education. Furthermore, an illustrated instructional example is provided to highlight the impact of the creative marketing breakthrough model constructs on individual creative performance.