INTEREST CATEGORY: DOCTORAL STUDENTS
POSTING TYPE: Awards

Author: Barbara Kahn

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MSI’s 2021 Clayton Doctoral Dissertation Proposal  Competition

Deadline: October 15, 2021 

The Marketing Science Institute is pleased to announce our annual Alden G. Clayton dissertation proposal competition. The competition is open to qualified doctoral students worldwide. Submissions must be received no later than October 15, 2021. MSI will grant up to five awards, and each winner will receive a cash prize. Honorable mention awards may also be granted. Awards for 2021 will be announced in early 2022. All submissions must be submitted through MSI’s online portal here.

Please encourage your eligible doctoral students to participate.

Eligibility Requirements:

• Students should be candidates for the doctorate in marketing and related fields (e.g. psychology, economics, management, strategy, etc.).
• The dissertation work must be less than 50% completed at the time of submission. The thesis advisor/chair must submit a letter approving the submission and certifying that the dissertation was no more than 50% completed at the time of submission here.
• Participation in other grant or award programs does not preclude consideration for this award.

Instructions For Submission:

• For blind reviewing purposes, please remove any identifying information (name, school, etc.) from the proposal and remove any metadata.
• Please follow the instructions for how to include a separate document containing detailed contact information for you and your thesis advisor/chair.
• Proposals should include a brief statement of the problem area to be researched, relevant theory and hypotheses, the methodology and analyses to be employed, and a brief indicative bibliography. Comment also on the managerial relevance of the expected results.
• All files should use the following naming conventions:
  • Title page: LastName_AGCSubmissionTitle.pdf
  • Main manuscript: AGCSubmissionTitle.pdf
  • where (i) ‘AGCSubmissionTitle’ refers to the title of the dissertation you are submitting, with spaces (and any unusual symbols and/or periods) replaced with underscores and (ii) LastName is your last (family) name.
• Maximum submission length is 20 double-spaced pages, inclusive of all tables/exhibits and references. The first page should be a brief, self-contained summary of the proposal.
• Include the names and email addresses of a minimum of 5 potential reviewers for your dissertation proposal. Exclude anyone that you are currently working with (your advisor, committee, etc), exclude any faculty from your University, and exclude any relatives or spouses. We are unable to review proposals without suggested reviewers. 

Experienced marketing academics will judge submissions on their potential contribution to business and academia, quality of the conceptual development, feasibility, and appropriateness of methodology, and creativity.

Please encourage your students to submit to MSI’s online portal here.

Best regards,
Barbara Kahn, MSI Executive Director
Sherry Pincus, Research Program Director