Peer Review

Mathematical Marketing

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Dec 3, 2017 by Business

Bookmark

Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: According to The Orange Grove, "Mαthematical Mαrketing is a flexible textbook for use in quantitative PhD courses in marketing. This book attempts to create a text designed to allow students to follow the mathematical reasoning used in Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research and other quantitatively oriented journals. As such, it does not hide the mathematics, but it does not assume that the student already has an extensive background in mathematics. The work can be used whole or in modules. Modules can be used as is or integrated into other class materials, books or other electronic output." The book is free and open source. The content was derived from two graduate level statistics courses from a Statistics Department and an Educational Measurement Department. The book is a result of transcribing notes from these two courses into book form. The book covers the most important mathematical tools used in marketing.
Type of Material:: Open (Access) Textbook
Recommended Uses:: Textbook for course, supplemental materials in a statistical/quantitative course, or adapted application for research class.
Technical Requirements:: Can also be downloaded as pdf or Word document.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: To provide a statistical text for that provides sufficient supportive knowledge for graduate students to understand and comprehend the mathematical reasoning used in quantitative marketing research journal articles.
Target Student Population:: High-level undergraduate and MBA students who are engaged in academic research, Ph.D. students, and marketing faculty who need a statistics refresher. The primary market appears to be Ph.D. students in marketing, and possibly other social sciences. This is NOT a book geared towards undergraduates looking to understand practitioner-based math concepts, like ratios, ROI, etc.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Basic mathematical background, undergraduate level.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: - The materials are high-quality, original format pdf, Word, and Excel files. Nothing has been scanned. - Supplemental and supporting information provide a suggested scope and sequence, which is very flexible. - All links are functional, and the individual documents are professional-level quality throughout. - The book contains a detailed index of topics and most chapters include at least one reference. - For each chapter, there is a helpful reference to previous chapters that serve as important pre-requisites. This serves as a good reminder to review or master the prior material before moving forward. - The first five chapters appear to be the most important, with Chapter 5 (ordinary least squares) being critical for all other chapters. - The author provides suggestions for chapter sequencing based on specialized courses in LISREL modeling, choice modeling, and econometrics.
Concerns:: - There is a lot of content and it may be difficult to cover it all in one course. - The book provides a rich and detailed description of math used in marketing but lacks examples to show how and when mathematical approaches should be used. While this gives the book more broad applicability to other disciplines, particularly social sciences such as management, psychology, and sociology, it detracts from the focus on marketing.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: - The material is complete and comprehensive. In addition, the author's objective, to provide statistical instruction with an applied approach and support relevant to academic research is pervasive in the organization, presentations and supporting documents provided on the site. - One of the most helpful components of the site is in the Preface, specifically the Prerequisite Structure, pg. xii. The author notes that much of the material can be studied in any order, but notes that some prerequisite knowledge is needed for specific chapters/content. Even students who would want to use this material for self-study would then be able to progress through the materials in an effective method. - Another strength is that the full document can be downloaded as a pdf file, or individual chapters/units may be downloaded individually to support desired course/instructor goals and objectives. - The author envisions the book will eventually have a community of adopters from around the world who will add to the first version of the book via teaching notes, exercises, data sets, more references, improved slides, and even additional chapters.
Concerns:: - There are no methods for readers to test whether or not they understand and have grasped the concepts in the book, such as problems. The author, however, has stated in the preface that he envisions a community of global academics to contribute components to this base book.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: - This material/site is one of the most efficient and effectively designed I have reviewed. Links all work, and design is very simple. This provide intuitive movement throughout the site. - Full very pdf documentation allows the user to work offline as well. While the site is not pretty, nor designed with lots of graphics, the current format provides efficiency and ease of access. - Another very effective component of the material is the list of supportive research journal publications that provide supportive examples of the content and materials contained in each chapter/unit of the material.
Concerns:: - The full Word-version of the book does not contain the full text, rather each chapter refers back to a link on the author's individual PC. Many users would not want to access these files. However, it should be noted that the individual Word-version chapters on the site are fully self-contained. -Although the content is not visually appealing, it does match up with what one might see in the empirically-based journals in marketing.

Other Issues and Comments:: This is a very useful and progress approach to statistics for doctoral marketing students. As such, it could easily serve as post-study reference materials.
Creative Commons: