Social Marketing as the Subject of Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of social marketing as the subject of doctoral dissertations. Search strategies were used and online databases mined to identify 93 social marketing-focused doctoral theses completed between 1971 and 2013. Dissertation titles and abstracts were analyzed to determine growth trends, institutional output, disciplinary context, topical coverage, theory and model use, and differences between countries. Results indicate that the growth in the number of doctoral theses on social marketing was neither stable nor continuous over the examined period but that a rapid increase has been seen in recent years. More than 80% of the identified doctoral dissertations were undertaken in American and British educational institutions. The largest contributions came from the fields of health sciences and education, followed by business administration, marketing, communications, and psychology. Public health was predominantly the research topic. Theories and models were not always reported, with Theory of Planned Behaviour, Diffusion of Innovations Theory, and Health Belief Model being utilized most often. This study also suggests that many dissertations were focused on program development while paying relatively limited attention to theoretical advancement. This study contributes to the debate on the academic legitimacy of social marketing and helps shape directions for further knowledge creation in the field.

Using qualitative insights to change practice: exploring the culture of antibiotic prescribing and consumption for urinary tract infections

“…The model has five stages (Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action and Maintenance), and is the most used theory by health researchers to identify and tailor interventions to facilitate behavioural change. 21 The Buyer Behaviour and Decision Making Model also has five stages (Need Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation of Alternatives, Purchase Decision and Purchase Evaluation). This model evaluated how, when and why someone consults with a GP, and how they evaluate the outcome.…”

Master’s thesis research in social marketing (1971-2015)

“…RQ2 involves the distribution of social marketing master’s theses by country and institution. Prior research has suggested that substantial proportions of social marketing journal articles and doctoral dissertations (Truong et al , 2014) were produced in North American countries. Similarly, this study found that nearly 50 per cent of the identified master’s theses were undertaken in US educational institutions (Table I), whereas 27 theses (10.2 per cent) were produced by Canadian educational institutions over the study period.…”

“…This finding is somewhat understandable because more social marketing courses have been taught in these disciplines than in any others (Kelly, 2009, 2013). These disciplines have also housed a majority of doctoral dissertations on social marketing (Truong et al , 2014). In contrast to Truong et al (2014) who indicated that the disciplines of education and psychology were the study context for a considerable number of doctoral-level social marketing dissertations, the present study has found only a limited number of master’s level social marketing theses housed in these disciplines (Table III).…”

Google Books, Scopus, Microsoft Academic and Mendeley for impact assessment of doctoral dissertations: A multidisciplinary analysis of the UK

“…The ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database has been widely used as the data source to investigate aspects of doctoral dissertations and publications resulting from them in different fields (e.g., Andersen & Hammarfelt, 2011;Kim, Hansen, & Helps, 2018;Slagle & Williams, 2019;Truong, Garry, & Hall, 2014). ProQuest Dissertations & Theses indexes a large number of dissertations and theses from universities "in nearly 100 countries."…”