Abstract
As a top-ranked career for many disciplines, professional selling continues to grow in importance and stature in higher education. Universities engaged in the sales area now number 166 worldwide, according to the 2021 Sales Education Foundation Annual survey (148 of those universities are in the United States). In response to the increasing growth in sales education, the Journal of Marketing Education will publish a Special Issue on Sales Curriculum. This initiative is in partnership with Baylor’s Center for Professional Selling, which is offering a $2,500 Best Paper Award.
Clearly, the demand for sales-ready graduates is large and growing. Given the un- and underemployment rate of many college graduates, universities have an imperative to equip students for promising areas of post-graduation employment. Institutions of higher education are trying to meet this demand by expanding curricular offerings, opening sales centers, and hiring sales faculty.
To respond to these changes in higher education, the Journal of Marketing Education (JME)’s overall objective of this special issue is to bring together scholarship that addresses how educators can expand our knowledge concerning how to prepare students for a career in sales. Manuscripts for this special issue are likely to align with one of four areas: 1) Building Competency-Based Curriculum & Courses, 2) Developing Graduate Sales Curriculum, 3) Conducting the Sales Curriculum Review Process, and 4) Centering Curriculum: Corporate Executives & Data.
Building Competency-Based Curriculum & Courses
The evolving landscape of the sales profession incorporates modern tech-savvy buyers, digital advancements, and the public’s considerate attention to corporate social responsibility. The qualities needed for today’s modern-day sales professional cover broader aspects including but not limited to fundamental selling and negotiation skills, sales-marketing-IT mindsets, sales-service orientation at the frontline, entrepreneurial selling capabilities, shaping the change management process for the buyer’s firm as it relates to the seller’s product/service area, and conducting responsible sales in the modern society. Here, we seek ways to develop competency-based sales curricula and activities for teaching and developing the conceptual and applied skills for undergraduate and graduate education in sales.
Papers in this area provide direction for departments, programs, courses, etc., in which competency-based development is a priority. Programmatic efforts to bring such issues to the forefront of educational planning are highly encouraged. Examples include issues relevant to programmatic expansion and assessment, effective sales centers/institutes, and the development of a competency-based sales curriculum. This work could be related to the AACSB accreditation/reaccreditation process.
Developing Graduate Sales Curriculum
Competency-based sales curricula provide a foundation that helps create competitive advantages for businesses searching for talent to engage and lead in sales, operations, and organizational leadership roles. Papers in this area embrace research projects that collect data from graduate participants.
Conducting the Sales Curriculum Review Process
Many papers in the sales pedagogy area have focused on how to teach, not what we teach. In this special issue, we want to encourage papers that examine the curriculum review process that focuses on identifying key areas to be contained in the curriculum (what to teach). Examples of papers relevant to this topic include frameworks on information sources, processes for engaging key constituents, and aligning industry practice with academic research. We are also interested in papers that discuss curriculum review processes for adjusting versus over-hauling the curriculum.
Centering Curriculum: Corporate Executives & Data
Extending experiential learning from simply tapping guest speakers, we are interested in novel research that documents the involvement of corporate executives and company data in the learning exchange. We encourage submissions that consider design elements based on empirical research derived from participants in the exchange as well as recruiters or hiring managers. Papers that examine executive engagement past the typical classroom speaker or buyer-for-role-play to shape student learning.
Potential contributors should feel free to contact the co-editors with any questions. All manuscripts will be judged on their scholarly merits and ability to advance the marketing education literature. Authors should follow the general submission guidelines of the JME from recent issues or online at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jmed
Co-editors:
Professor Andrea Dixon, Baylor University,
Professor Christine Lai-Bennejean, Emlyon Business School,