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Jagdish Sheth the Accidental Marketer; Sheth Explains Rule of Three and How Small Firms Can Compete

Matt Weingarden

Marketing Legends

In this video, Russ Klein, CEO of the American Marketing Association interviews Dr. Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at the Goizueta Business School of Emory University. During this interview, Dr. Sheth speaks on how he became a marketing professor and explains how the rule of three and how small firms can compete.

Jag Sheth is a marketing pioneer who has helped shape the study of consumer behavior throughout his nearly 60-year academic career. His impact is also visible in the areas of relationship marketing, social marketing, and study of emerging markets

Jag Sheth | A Brief Biography

Jagdish Sheth was born the youngest of six children in Burma (now known as Myanmar) where his father was a rice merchant. The family moved to India after the Japanese invasion in 1941. Growing up, Sheth was influenced by two older brothers: his brother Humatlal (16 years older) opened a shop that sold jewelry boxes and brother Gulab Chand (14 years older) was a teacher and joined Mahatma Gandhi’s independence movement. This blend of business sense and academic interest continue to guide Sheth’s decisions. 

Based on the advice of a family friend, Sheth went to the United States for an MBA and ended up at Pittsburgh knowing nothing about the city or climate. There he met renowned scholar, and future mentor, John Howard who recruited Sheth into a Marketing PhD program. Howard and Sheth would evntually collaborate on The Theory of Buyer Behavior.

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After leaving Pittsburgh, Sheth taught at a number of institutions, most prominently at University of Illinois, University of Southern California, and Emory University. He founded and led two centers: Center for Telecommunications Management and Center for Relationship Marketing. In addition, Sheth helped establish the first Indian Institute of Management.

Sheth’s diverse research interests include consumer behavior, global marketing and emerging markets, healthcare marketing, relationship marketing, and IT/telecommunications marketing.

He currently resides near Atlanta Georgia with his wife Madhu and continues to teach at Emory University where his oldest of two children is also on the faculty. 

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About the Sheth Foundation:

The mission of the Sheth Foundation is to support the academic scholarship, publications, education and research of tax-exempt, publicly-supported educational organizations, primarily focusing on the discipline of marketing, by providing support to grant awarding Recipient Organizations.

The Sheth Foundation additionally provides support to other tax-exempt, publicly-supported organizations that are closely related in purpose or function to one or more of the Recipient Organizations and the activities of which carry out the purposes of one or more of the Primary Supported Organizations.

The Sheth Foundation was founded by Dr. Jagdish & Madhu Sheth. 

Matt Weingarden, Vice President, Communities & Journals, leads the diverse team that supports the AMA’s network of community leaders from its three broad communities and four scholarly journals.