Ghaziabad: ­IMT Ghaziabad, India’s premier B-school successfully hosted the4th AIM-AMA Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium, one of the biggest knowledgesharing and international collaboration platforms for research scholars in the world. The 3-day consortium brought together more than 50 internationally renowned professors and an equal number ofresearch scholarsfrom various countries including US, UK, Canada, China, Singapore, Australia, Germany, Netherlands and India.

Consortium co-chair, Dr. Jagdish N. Seth from Emory University, applauded the arrangements and the effort put by IMT to make this consortium memorable for scholars. Dr. Sheth said that one of the most critical issues facing India is the shortage of good faculty. The aim of the Academy of Indian Marketing (AIM) along with Sheth Foundation and American Marketing Association (AMA) is to nurture research scholarsand facilitate their transformation into excellent professors and teachers. The world is looking at Indian talent and platforms like Doctoral Consortium bring an added advantage and help in guiding the talent in right direction.

The consortium hosted a stellar line up of national and international marketing personalities including Dr. Amitava Chattopadhyay, INSEAD, Singapore; Dr. Constantine Katsikeas, University of Leeds; Dr. Denish Shah, Georgia State University; Dr. A. Parsuraman, University of Miami; Dr. Ritu Mehta, IIM Kolkata; Dr. Russell W. Belk, Schulich School of Business; Dr.Ya-Ping Chang, HUST, Wuhan China; Dr. Jeff Boichuk, University of Virginia, among others. The eminent scholars from elite institutions addressed the young faculty participants and doctoral fellows in various formal and informal sessions.

The sessions highlighted the valuable insights of the experts on various domains of the marketing discipline including branding, retailing, consumer behaviour, entrepreneurship, new product development and customer relationship to name a few. Explaining the theme of the consortium, ‘Engaging in a Connected World’, consortium co-chairDr. V. Kumar from Georgia State University, said that for next 20 years, the term “engagement” will be a primary catalyst that will impact the world business scenario tremendously.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr.Surinder Batra, Dean (Academics), IMT Ghaziabad said, “It is a great privilege for IMT to organize this marquee event. The consortiumis a great platform for Young Doctoral Fellows to interact with world’s top-notch scholars and get to know the process of getting published in a scholarly journal. IMT feels honoured to welcome a galaxy of luminaries from across the world and introducing a new paradigm of knowledge and talent promotion. By hosting this one-of-its-kind initiative in India is a part of IMT’s quest to promote research and academic excellence in the field of marketing.”

The ‘Research Dating’ session, a unique concept introduced by the organizers, received a remarkable response for its innovative and engaging approach towards research-based interaction among mentors and their mentee. In this unique session, doctoral students and young faculty participants received feedback from experienced faculty on their preferred research topic.Speaking about the session, Dr. V. Kumar said that ‘Research Dating’ or ‘Speed Dating’ helps in opening the mind of the doctoral fellows and chisels their approach toward research. It facilitates informal interaction with top professors who guide them on their research journeys.Sharing his experience, Mr. Ganesh B.E., one of the research fellows who is working on the topic of Political Branding said that the session provided him valuable feedback from top scholars in the world and helped him network with top minds.