This seminar is designed as a platform for PhD students to receive feedback on their research projects from their peers and faculty members at the Department of Marketing in a friendly and constructive environment. From their second year onwards, PhD students summarize the state of their research, openly discuss current challenges, practice presenting for conferences and their thesis defense, practice responding to feedback from other researchers, learn to provide constructive feedback to their peers, and identify points of connection for research with other PhD students and institutes.

After each presentation, the Marketing faculty will deduct a debriefing with the PhD students to structure the feedback and assist in planning a roadmap how to proceed with the dissertation project.

The timing of the course dates will be closely linked to the timing of the Marketing Department’s Research Seminar Series. To take full advantage of the faculty expertise offered at WU's Marketing Department, all doctoral/PhD students in marketing are expected to attend all the seminars in the Research Seminar Series.

In addition to the networking possibilities within the Department of Marketing, this seminar aims at assisting PhD students in breaking down their research project into milestones, creating a condensed summary of their research projects, and and provide a constructive environment to practice and improve presentation as well as discussion and responding skills.

By reflecting on the projects of their peers, PhD students improve their ability to provide constructive feedback in a peer review process, to gain new insights, and/or to acquire new research ideas. Students will also be enabled to translate original research, which is not necessarily within the core focus of their own projects, into research questions and to discuss them.

The success of the course critically depends on the opportunity to engage with different scholars, both outside and inside the Marketing Department, and obtain opinions and additional perspectives. Hence, a minimum of 80% attendance of the contact ours is expected (this also includes online classes if this should become necessary).

From September 18th-19th, 2023, there will be an external PhD Colloquium, which students are also expected to attend and which counts towards attendance. More detailed information about the offsite (location, exact times) will follow.

The aim of the seminar is to go hand in hand with the ongoing research activities of the PhD students.

The presenting students are asked to

• prepare an extended abstract for their research project to be submitted two weeks ahead of their presentation date. All other PhD students are asked to come prepared to the seminar, having read this abstract, and having prepared questions for the discussion.
   
• prepare a 45 minutes presentation of their recent research project, highlighting the relevance, theoretical background, research gap, methodology, and (preliminary) results. After each presentation, there will be a 30 min Q&A session to answer questions from other PhDs regarding their research and also to discuss open questions and challenges to proceed.
   
• based on the debrief meeting with the Marketing professor faculty, students are asked to submit a 1-page summary of key take-aways and implications for the ongoing project. This paper will be also shared with the PhD supervisor and is due one week after the presentation.

The key responder is asked to

• prepare a concise review (1-2 pages) based on materials that are available before the talk (e.g., thesis proposal, conference submission, working paper)
   
• start the discussion based on this review before the other participants ask their questions (Role of the key responder)
   

All other students are asked to come prepared to the seminars, having read the abstract, and prepare questions for the discussion.

Students will be assessed based on their own research presentation (60%), the summary of the debriefing (20%), and their class participation (20%).

For this course we have the following scale:

• < 60%                             fail (5)
• 60% bis 69,99%               sufficient (4)
• 70% bis 79,99%               satisfactory (3)
• 80% bis 89,99%               good (2)
• >= 90%                           excellent (1)

For positive evaluation a minimum of 80 percent of the classes need to be attended.

PLEASE NOTE: In order to be able to attend and complete the course, students must be supervised by one of the Marketing Department's professors. In order to formally register for the course, please email katarina.ilic@wu.ac.at.

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