An empirical study about the gap between classroom pedagogy in marketing courses and real-world marketing activities.

Abstract

Thousands of students graduate from management universities across the country every year to join the marketing domain. They find employment across the industry spectrum in companies ranging from Startups to large multinationals. These students often have minimal work experience, sometimes having worked in professions that involve little to no knowledge of the marketing function. But they are knowledgeable in the theoretical concepts of marketing strategy- the 4Ps, the 5Cs, marketing ethics and others and have possible worked on the basic marketing strategy for well-known companies as part of their course curriculum. However, they might not necessarily be aware of the day to day activities undertaken by a marketing manager, whose key focus may lie in realizing business opportunities and making the business profitable. Further, though their activities may involve the same basic marketing principles, their priorities with respect to one sub-stream of marketing over another (say Brand Management over Market Research) may vary. Hence from the perspective of a student, the study is essential to determine the qualities that a recruiter seeks when hiring a fresh graduate for a marketing position, from a pedagogy perspective, the study is important to determine the needs of the industry accordingly shape the courses to make graduates ready for the industry, whereas from an industry perspective the study is important to identify where collaboration is possible with the academia to bridge the gap between the classroom and the industry. The purpose of this paper is to study the difference between knowledge gained from the classroom and the prevalent marketing activities in industry. And to identify the gaps between the two and barriers that prevent free flow of knowledge from the classroom to the boardroom based on above study and propose suggestions.