ØAADM4600 Value-creating marketing Course description

This course is based on the historical development of marketing as a field of study and practice, from a traditional focus on the company’s activities and products to a deeper understanding of how value is created for customers. The course explores how businesses today not only deliver goods and services but also actively contribute to customers’ own value-creation processes through their products, services, and relationships. The central theme of this course is a genuine focus on value, placing the customer at the center of attention and examining how marketing can facilitate customers' use of the company’s products and services to achieve their goals and create their own value.

The marketing field has progressed from a primarily descriptive role to a value-oriented approach, where the primary goal is to understand how marketing contributes to creating meaningful customer value. The course will give students insights into key perspectives such as market orientation, relationship building, service-dominant logic, consumer understanding, and sustainability, emphasizing how these factors are part of a holistic value-creation process.

By exploring topics such as consumer behavior, segmentation, positioning, and branding, students will gain an understanding of how businesses can design and organize marketing strategies that maximize the company’s own value and support customers’ goals and value-creating activities.

The language of instruction is English.

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After completing the course, the student should have the following overall learning outcomes, defined in terms of knowledge, skills, and general competence:

Knowledge

The student:

• has up-to-date knowledge of marketing as a discipline, its theories, dominant perspectives, and the current state of research.
• has in-depth knowledge of how the collection and analysis of market information forms the basis for value creation in businesses.
• has an advanced understanding of segmentation, branding, and positioning.
• has advanced knowledge of key models and current theories related to consumer behavior.
• has a specialized understanding of how value co-creation, market orientation, networks, and relationships influence the business’s marketing function and customer behavior.

Skills

The student:

• can analyze existing marketing theories and perspectives and apply them independently to practical and theoretical problem-solving.
• can identify and explore marketing opportunities to address the complex challenges businesses face today.
• can adopt a critical approach to the business’s marketing function.
• can identify and implement activities that will enhance the business’s value creation.
• can convey scientific knowledge in both written and oral form.

General Competence

The student:

• can critically reflect on the significance of marketing for individuals, businesses, and society.
• can critically reflect on the discipline's theoretical foundations and challenges.
• can contribute to increased systematic and scientific thinking regarding a business's marketing function.

Economic activities impact the environment. Plastics end up in the ocean, producing one T-shirt consumes thousands of liters of water, and salmon farmers pour toxic chemicals into the seas to fight lice infestations. Economists see the natural world around them as providing environmental goods and services that we all enjoy, such as a lake to swim in, drinking water, or a forest that filters the air. Those environmental goods are not easily traded in a market because of their public good characteristics. And pollution to an economist is an unintended byproduct - an externality - of activities that are otherwise desirable, like flying to New York, assembling computers, or eating dinner.

This course teaches students to think like economists about a wide range of environmental problems, from small, local ones like noise from a train track to the biggest one of them all, climate change. We discuss how to judge a particular amount of pollution - is it economically efficient, is it fair? Pollution characteristics - does the location of polluters and polluted matter, does pollution accumulate in the air or water? - determine how we go about trying to establish optimal levels of pollution - for example air pollution in Oslo.

We will discuss ways to "put a price" on the environment and to carry out cost-benefit-analysis to decide whether projects that have environmental impacts - such as a new highway into Oslo - are worth carrying out.

Students also learn about the economics of environmental regulation. We can try to reduce pollution in many ways: by providing information, `nudging´ people to `do the right thing´, subsidizing clean technologies, taxing emissions, creating cap-and-trade markets, or outright banning substances.

Finally, students will think about how green technology is developed and can be incentivized by policy.

Language of instruction is English.

The following coursework requirements must have been approved for the student to take the exam:

• Coursework 1: One written assignment of approximately 1000 words (+/- 10%), to be carried out in groups of up to three students.

This coursework requirement aims to help the student achieve the intended learning outcomes and promote the student's progression and development.

All required coursework must be completed and approved by the given deadline for the student to take the exam. If the coursework requirements have not been approved, the student will be given one opportunity to submit an improved version by a given deadline

The exam in the course consists of a written group assignment and an individual oral exam:

• A written group assignment of up to 3600 words, completed in groups of up to 3 students. Font and size: Arial / Calibri 12 pt. Line spacing: 1.5.
• An individual adjusting oral exam based on the written group assignment. Each student is allocated 15 minutes. Students may prepare a short presentation and bring their notes.

The individual oral exam will only be carried out if the group assignment receives a passing grade. If the group assignment is not passed, the students may submit a revised group assignment for a new exam. The individual oral exam will carried out if the revised group assignment receives a passing grade.

During the oral exam, students will receive feedback on the written group assignment and be informed of the grade the assignment has received. The oral exam is carried out individually, and each student's grade may be adjusted up or down by one grade.

All parts of the exam must be passed in order to pass the course. Students’ transcripts will show the final grade in this subject.

The group assignment grade can be appealed. In the case of an appeal, the appeals committee will assess the group assignment. If the appeals committee changes the grade, a new individual oral exam will be carried out.

A student who receive a fail grade are given one opportunity to submit an improved version of the written group assignment for assessment.

After completing the course, the student should have the following overall learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

Students will gain insight into

• the fundamental ideas of the environment as provider of economic goods and services, and of pollution as being the unintended byproduct of economic actions
• a range of important environmental problems caused by economic activity, and their economic characteristics
• different economic types of regulation addressing pollution
• the importance of context in economic analysis of the environment
• different methods to investigate the impact of pollution and regulations

Skills

The students will learn how to

• use economic analysis and modeling to assess pollution
• use economic analysis to assess environmental regulation
• understand empirical evidence regarding environmental problems and potential solutions
• critically assess economic analyses directed at environmental problems

General competence

The student is more able to

• use English as the professional language in Economics
• use environmental economics insights in a professional setting, for example for cost-benefit analysis or concerning sustainability issues

Lectures with active student participation.

The following coursework requirements must have been approved in order for the student to take the exam:

• Coursework 1: Written assignment. Group work. Maximum 5 pages.
• Coursework 2: Written assignment. Group or individual work. Maximum 5 pages.
• Coursework 3: Written assignment. Individual work. Maximum 5 pages.

The group work will be carried out in groups consisting of 2-5 students, depending on the number of participating students in the course.

The coursework is part of the active learning experience for the students and helps prepare students for the final exam. It also serves as useful feedback about the effectiveness of the lecturer's teaching.

All required coursework must be completed and approved by the given deadline in order for the student to take the exam. If one or more coursework requirements have not been approved, the student will be given one opportunity to submit a new or improved version by the given deadline.

The exam in the course is a supervised exam of 4 hours.