The European Marketing Academy (EMAC) is pleased to announce the winners of the first "EMAC/Sheth Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Competition" for outstanding doctoral research in the field of market¬ing. The final round of the Competition was held at the EMAC Annual Conference in Groningen, the Netherlands, on Thursday, May 25, 2017.

The competition honors the authors of outstanding dissertations on marketing topics submitted to universities in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa. This year, 36 scholars from 20 countries took part in the competition. Based on novelty, relevance, conceptual rigor, methodological rigor, quality of expression and potential impact of their submissions, the award jury selected the following winners:

First Place:

Jessica Müller-Stewens, University of St. Gallen
“Gamification: Conceptualizing and Testing a New Consumer-Firm Interaction Paradigm”

Second Place:

Sungtak Hong, London Business School (now at Bocconi University)
“The Perils of Category Management: The Effect of Product Assortment on Multicategory Purchase Incidence”

Third Place:

Alexander Edeling, University of Cologne
“Essays on Strategic Marketing Behavior and Its Financial Performance Implications”

In addition, the Jury awarded an Honorable Mention to Corinna Hehlmann, University of Mannheim, for her research titled “How Customer Culture and Company Country of Origin Shape Customer Reactions to Company Behavior: A Cross-Cultural Investigation” in recognition of the quality of the work and the closeness of the competition.

The first, second, and third place winners received a plaque at the award ceremony and cash awards of €5,000, €3,000, and €1,000.

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