Programme

PGPX

Term

IV

Academic Year

2021-22

Course title

Strategic Models in Marketing

Area

Marketing

Credits

0.75

Instructor(s)

Prof. Ramanathan Subramaniam

Course Description & Objectives

Introduction: Course content: This course aims to develop a basic appreciation for strategic models in Marketing. The predominant methodology would be applied game theory. In this course, the topics covered would include models of price and quality competition, introduction to contract theory, auction theory and other applications of game theory in marketing involving dynamic games of complete and incomplete information (e.g. signalling games and repeated games). Depending on student taste and time available, we may cover some advanced topics. Objectives: The main objectives are as follows. - First, the course introduces strategic models that are the source of marketing principles and concepts grounded in microeconomics. - Second, this course is expected to aid students in making their independent appraisal of such strategic moves in the marketplace and understand the motivations behind them. - Third, the introduction to analytical model building may help the students develop and appreciate such models depending on the context in their business workplace and offer a way to understand new developments in marketing theory.

Pedagogy

This course would have lectures based on a) readings b) a few cases, and c) simple classroom simulations and games. The readings themselves would comprise of handouts, textbook readings and articles from scholarly journals. The aim of the scholarly articles would primarily be to understand the main idea and the assumptions of the model. The main thrust of the cases would be to apply the theories and frameworks learnt to real life cases.