PhD in Consumer Behavior

The Marketing group at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University seeks a highly motivated PhD student looking to study research questions in the domain of consumer behavior. Strong applicants are motivated to conduct novel research within the field of consumer behavior, typically have a background in psychology, business, statistics, or a related field, and desire to pursue careers as world-class academic researchers. The project will enable the PhD student to develop new theories about consumer behavior and/or psychology and test these theories utilizing quantitative research. Students define and execute their own projects in consultation with their advisers, and thus need creativity, self-direction, and a passion for scientific research.

Consumer behavior, Psychology, Judgement and decision making, Attitude formation and change, Preference formation and measurement, Marketplace morality, Technology

The marketing group at Rotterdam School of Management (RSM) ranks among the best in the world. Our members publish their research in top journals in marketing as well as related fields. They deeply care about open science practices (e.g., data sharing and open-source software), and frequently host seminars to encourage knowledge exchange. Every year, we host a PhD day during which the students present their work and receive ample feedback. The group is diverse (in terms of research interests and cultural background), collaborative, and collegial.

Our PhD program seeks to train the next generation of marketing academics. We want our students to maximize their potential and become independent marketing scholars. We expect students to become experts in their domain of interest and define a research agenda around a topic of their choosing. As such, PhD positions in our group are open and students have the opportunity to collaborate with several faculty members when possible. The supervisory team will be formed considering the student’s research interests. During their years of study, students define and execute their own projects. They do this in consultation with their advisers.

Our faculty members in consumer behavior work on a wide range of topics, such as how advertising works psychologically (Steven Sweldens), judgment and decision making (Gabriele Paolacci), self-control and consumption (Mirjam Tuk), how technology augments behavior Shwetha Mariadassou and Anne-Kathrin Klesse), numerical processing (Dan Schley and Christophe Lembregts), biological influences on consumption and goal pursuit (Bram Van den Bergh), how to measure consumer preferences (Antonia Krefeld-Schwalb), pro-social behavior, social credit, and consumer advocacy (Alex Genevsky), marketplace morality (Johannes Boegershausen), and pro-societal consumer interventions (Romain Cadario).

PhD students in our department receive excellent training. In addition to standard required course work, students typically take courses in experimental design and statistics, and seminars in consumer behavior and psychology, both internally and externally. In addition, the department offers a workshop series that includes seminars on a variety of topics, content, skills, and methods. Examples are: How to publish successfully, how to prepare for the job market, how to analyze voice data, how to manage your data and code. These workshops are hosted by internal and external faculty members, which enables students to get to know excellent researchers and establish their own (international) network. To facilitate the latter, students are also encouraged and receive funding to go on a research visit to leading research-intensive international institutions and collaborate with excellent external faculty.

Note : Applicants seeking to work at the intersection of consumer behavior and another discipline (quantitative marketing and/or neuroscience) should indicate this preference in their application and discuss their motivation for interdisciplinary research.

The PhD student will work in close collaboration with the supervisory team and other faculty on tasks that include:

• Identifying novel research questions based on real-world phenomena or extant theory.
• Understanding the theoretical foundations and prior literature relevant to understanding the phenomena
• Identifying the fundamental variables and relationships that are most important to studying the phenomena and formalizing them in a measurement model or set of experimental hypotheses
• Gathering experimental data to test hypotheses or measure phenomena.
• Identifying the critical assumptions needed to draw inferences from empirical results.
• Writing computer code to analyze experimental or secondary data
• Presenting research findings at international conferences
• Writing up findings for publication in international journals
• Attending classes and seminars (including those offered at other universities) to develop thinking and research skills further
• Participating in and contributing to departmental research functions (PhD Day, research seminars, weekly research meetings)
• Teaching (to a limited degree) students of the department

Through workshops, research seminars, applied and theoretical research with faculty, and seminars on key disciplines that provide the foundations of the marketing discipline (statistics, economics, psychology), the PhD student will gain the requisite experience for independent work. The actual project will be defined by the student and the supervisory group and, thus, requires creativity, self-direction, and passion for top-notch scientific research.

Students have access to world-class research facilities:

• Erasmus Behavioral Lab provides facilities to conduct high-quality behavioral research, including sound-insulated cubicles, group labs, video labs, and facilities for eye tracking, EEG/ERP, facial coding, and hormone-administration studies.
• High-performance computing is available to researchers via SURFSara (a Dutch consortium for scientific computing).
• Researchers have access to multiple MRI scanners via Erasmus Medical Centre.

We seek candidates with the following qualities:

• Background in psychology, statistics, business, or a related discipline
• Masters’ degree (preferably a Research Master´s or MPhil degree)
• Energy and passion for consumer behaviour, consumer psychology, and marketing
• Experience conducting experimental research with human participants
• Statistical skills and command of standard software packages for analyzing experimental data (e.g., R, SPSS, SAS, Stata, JASP), and a strong willingness to develop these skills further
• Command of empirical software packages (e.g., Qualtrics, MediaLab, Authorware, E-Prime) and a strong willingness to develop these skills further
• Intellectual curiosity, eagerness to learn, and openness to criticism and other perspectives
• Strong commitment to methodological rigor and scientific integrity
• Strong motivation to pursue an international career as a leading scholar
• Excellent writing ability in fluent English, ideally with experience writing for a scientific audience
• Strong communication and organizational skills
• Willingness and motivation to independently formulate research projects and carry them through to completion

Interdisciplinary focus:

One feature that sets RSM apart from other faculties is the extent of cross-discipline work between the quantitative faculty (trained primarily in machine learning, operations research and economics) and the behavioral faculty (e.g., trained primarily in psychology and neuroscience). Thus, we are also explicitly inviting applications of students who would like to work at the intersection of quantitative marketing and consumer behavior. Such a PhD position would have the opportunity of allowing interested candidates the opportunity to study problems at the intersection of quantitative and behavioral marketing. For example, if the PhD student was working on immersive technologies, their research could benefit from in-depth training in the psychology of consumer judgment and decision-making. We encourage candidates to explicitly mention explicitly in their application (e.g., in the motivation letter and/or research statements) if they’d envision to work at the intersection of these two disciplines.

Required by ERIM

All application documents required by ERIM can be found here: https://www.erim.eur.nl/doctoral-programme/phd-in-management/admissions/application/

Interested candidates are invited to visit the ERIM PhD in Management website (http://www.erim.eur.nl/doctoral-programme/ ) for information about application procedures and criteria. If you have any questions about the formal admission requirements, please contact the ERIM doctoral office: [email protected] or Dr. Anne Kathrin Klesse ([email protected] ).

Note: This year, we offer our second PhD Virtual Open House Day. If you are interested in our PhD program and consider applying, we invite you to join us on November 23 at 6pm to 8pm CETOR on November 27 at 10am to 12pm CET. In these info sessions we provide you with lots of information on our PhD program, department, and school. You will also get to know some of our faculty members and current PhD students, hear them talk about their research, and have the chance to ask questions. Interested? Then please register here or use this QR code:

(Registration Deadline: November 20).

We look forward to meeting you!

You will generate research that can be published in top-tier peer-reviewed journals in marketing, such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Marketing. The research group at RSM has a strong record of publishing in these and other top journals in related fields, including Management, Psychology, Neuroscience, and Economics. The final results of the PhD project are published in a PhD dissertation, and most marketing PhD dissertations at RSM find their way into top journals.

To strengthen your international research network and complement your time at RSM, you will receive funding for a 3- to 6-month research visit. Past visits have included Stanford, Wharton, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Colorado, Cornell, and UCLA.

Students are encouraged to pursue topics that not only improve the practice of marketing, but also consumer or societal well-being, and thus align closely with the school’s mission to be a force for positive change in the world.

PhD research should be of the highest quality, carried out with scientific rigor and the utmost integrity. The department values openness and encourages students to embrace the principles and tools of open science (e.g., making code and data available to others and pre-registering experiments). The marketing group conducts research in our core field of marketing, as well as related disciplines such as management, psychology, judgment and decision-making, neuroscience, economics, and statistics. Our diversity and interdisciplinarity make the department a lively, creative, and intellectually stimulating place to conduct research.

Please refer to the web pages of our faculty members (https://www.rsm.nl/research/departments/marketing-management/faculty/ ) for more information about their current research interests. You may also refer to our RSM Discovery section (see here https://discovery.rsm.nl/researchers/ ). It offers a collection of articles and videos that our faculty (and those from other departments) have created about their research.

You may also look at the work done by the team of the Psychology of AI expert practice at the Erasmus Centre for Data Analytics: https://ecda.eur.nl/expert-practices/psychology-of-ai/

ERIM offers fully-funded and salaried PhD positions, which means that accepted PhD candidates become employees (promovendi) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO) .

Erasmus University Rotterdam aspires to be an equitable and inclusive community. We nurture an open culture, where everyone is supported to fulfil their full potential. We see inclusivity of talent as the basis of our successes, and the diversity of perspectives and people as a highly valued outcome. EUR provides equal opportunities to all employees and applicants regardless of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, age, neurodiversity, functional impairment, citizenship, or any other aspect which makes them unique. We look forward to welcoming you to our community.

For questions regarding the PhD application and selection procedure, please check the Admissions or send us an e-mail via [email protected] .