2024 Doctoral Support Award Competition Information

Penn State’s Institute for the Study of Business Markets announces its 34th Annual Business Marketing Doctoral Support Award Competition.

Up to three candidates in accredited doctoral programs will receive dissertation support awards. Dissertations in any area of business-to-business (B2B) marketing or in any of the methodological areas that support advances in business marketing will be considered. 

We welcome submissions on various B2B topics, including traditional areas such as B2B innovation, buying behavior, customer analytics, and interorganizational relationships. For more details on our most recent key priority domains (organized around Agile, Remote, Digital, Governance, Value, and Sustainability), see the whitepaper on the 2021 ISBM B2B Trend Study. We also welcome submissions on B2B marketing topics that are not explicitly covered here.

In addition to applications from PhD students in marketing, we encourage applications from students in economics, management science, organizational psychology, statistics, anthropology and other disciplines whose developments help advance our understanding of the operation of the B2B marketplace.

Beyond a good fit with ISBM and a clear focus on a B2B marketing problem, good submissions have the following criteria:

1. Important to B2B marketing practice;
2. Important to B2B marketing academia;
3. Rigorous in terms of the proposed research methodology;
4. At a stage where ISBM support can make a difference.

Doctoral students can submit at various stages of their dissertation process.

The award consists of:

• Up to $5,000 in financial assistance to be used for travel, conference attendance, data collection, and other expenses of conducting and presenting the results of the research.
• Assistance, as needed, in gaining the cooperation of both ISBM member firms and non-member firms for data, interviews, etc.

Submission Information

PhD candidates interested in the competition should submit an abstract of their research not to exceed five double-spaced pages (excluding references), along with a current vita and a vita of their dissertation advisor(s). The abstract should address the potential importance of their work to business marketing practice, its theoretical contributions, the research methodology, and the amount and kind of support requested.

The abstract submission deadline is  November 18, 2024.

Electronic submissions must follow the following rules:

• Preferred file format is Adobe Acrobat (.pdf).
• Name all files submitted as attachments:
  • Filename for Proposal: DC24-Yourlastname.pdf
  • Filename for your Vita: DC24-Yourlastname-CV.pdf
  • Filename for your Advisor: DC24-Yourlastname-ADV-CV.pdf
  • If co-advisors, name them ADV1, etc.
• Any other documents submitted electronically should be named in the same manner:
• DC24-Yourlastname-description.pdf

Any emails relating to the competition should have the following in the subject line: “ISBM 2024 Doctoral Competition”. Submissions should be sent as email attachments in pdf format to LNicolini@psu.edu.

Proposals will be judged by an academic panel, consisting of representatives of the ISBM and qualified faculty members from other universities. The panel will not provide feedback to the entrants at this stage. Finalists will be notified by December 6, 2024.

Final proposals not to exceed 15 double-spaced pages (excluding references) are due on January 31, 2025. Winners will be announced by March 15, 2025. All finalists will receive feedback from the academic review panel.

Any pages of the abstract and/or proposal (not including reference pages) exceeding the page limits listed above will not be considered in the review process. Request samples of abstracts or proposals by sending an email to LNicolini@psu.edu.

Additional Information

For more information, please contact the ISBM Directors:

Dr. Stefan Wuyts (suw282@psu.edu)
ISBM Director
Professor of Marketing

Dr. J. Andrew Petersen (jap57@psu.edu)
ISBM Associate Director
Associate Professor of Marketing

Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM)
Smeal College of Business
The Pennsylvania State University
Business Building
University Park, PA 16802-3603
Phone:  814-863-2782