My academic career has taken me around the world, and I am very happy to be at Nordakadamie. My first academic appointment was at Texas A&M University, near where I grew up in Oklahoma, USA.

I also taught at the University of Miami in Florida before emigrating to New Zealand where I taught at Waikato University for 21 years. I am now a citizen of both the USA and New Zealand. Since leaving Waikato University, I have taught in the USA and Canada. Research and academic conferences have taken me to other countries as well. I love experiencing the different cultures of the countries where I have taught and researched, and I look forward to exploring Germany. Unfortunately, I do not speak German so I ask you to be patient and help me learn!

I earned my PhD from the University of North Carolina after completing an MBA from the University of Arkansas. I also attended the University of Kansas where I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts. The combination of fine arts and business found me working in graphic design at the headquarters of the multinational retailer Walmart before I began my doctoral studies.

My teaching experiences, at both graduate and senior undergraduate levels, include Consumer Behaviour, Marketing Strategy, Brand Strategy, Marketing Ethics, Social
Marketing, and Marketing & Society. I have particularly enjoyed supervising master’s and doctoral students in their research. Most recently, my teaching interests reflect my research and focus on helping students become responsible marketers who benefit the planet and people.

At Nordakadamie, I will be teaching elective modules on Marketing & Society, Responsible Marketing, and Consumer Culture. These subjects help prepare students to make socially and environmentally responsible decisions in the marketing domain. My students and I will explore such big questions as: How does marketing affect global wellbeing and the sustainability of the planet? How can we use the marketing system to save the planet? How can we encourage responsible marketing practices? Does responsibility go beyond ethics? How do people use the marketplace to create and transform social relationships? These questions tie in with my philosophy regarding the Marketing Concept. I believe that an organisation’s efforts should be aimed towards satisfying customer needs at a profit, but not with disregard for consequences for people or planet. I hope that during our weeks together my students and I will inspire each other to act, both individually and collectively as consumers and as marketers, in ways that make the world a better place than when we found it.

My teaching interests naturally derive from my research passions for responsible marketing and consumer wellbeing. My work has been published in leading, peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Research, Consumption Markets & Culture, International Journal of Advertising, and Journal of Service Marketing. I also founded a Respect Research group with whom I have conducted research on respect in the marketplace. We have learned that respect means more than acknowledging people; it also means caring and protecting. I believe that respect is a precursor to trust in marketplace relationships and is essential to responsible marketing and to sustainable marketing. A second research program is Happiness and Consumption. In this research, we learned about the dynamics of consumption related to individuals’ sense of happiness. Furthermore, I served on the University of Waikato’s human research ethics committee where I crafted regulations for ethical, academic research based on principles of both ethics and mutual respect.

Finally, in my experience, the best part of an academic career is the opportunity to interact with fellow academics around the world. The intellectual discourse is stimulating and the friendships are rewarding. I look forward to experiencing more of both at Nordakadamie this year.