- BTG- Digital Governance and Democracy (Principal investigator)
Alan's research and teaching focus on services marketing, corporate branding/reputation, digital marketing and marketing research. Before joining the Department in 1988, Alan was a senior consultant within a London-based marketing consultancy practice and prior to that an Associate Director of a leading London-based marketing research agency. Whilst at Strathclyde, he has been a Vice Dean of the Strathclyde Business School and Head of the Department of Marketing.
Alan is a Fellow of the Market Research Society (MRS). He was a member of the Society's Governing Council (2002-2009) and also chaired the Society's Professional Development Advisory Board. He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and acts as a Senior Examiner for both the CIM and MRS.
Alan is a member of the Executive Editorial Board of the International Journal of Market Research and is the journal's book review editor. He is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards for the Journal of Marketing Management and Corporate Communications: An International Journal. Alan was also the Academic Programme Director for European Marketing Academy Conference (EMAC) in 2003
He has been invited to deliver lectures and seminars throughout the world in countries such as Pakistan, Poland, Australia, Portugal, Spain, Malaysia, Singapore and the USA as well as for organisations such as the Institute of Directors, CIPFA, ABCUL, MRS, CIM, Online Information, the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland and commercial organisations. He is a Board Director of Culture Sparks (an arts marketing and audience development agency, whose aim is to improve accessibility to arts and cultural events) and he also acts as a marketing and marketing research advisor and trainer for a number of Scottish and UK based organisations.
Research Interests
His research interests relate to the linkages between corporate culture, performance measurement and service delivery personnel. In particular the critical role that service delivery has in the development of corporate reputation, service branding, levels of customer satisfaction and the differentiation of a service organisation. He is also involved in research relating to the role and application of marketing research which has resulted in his succesful textbook Marketing Research: An Integrated Approach, 3rd Edition. In addition, he has published in a wide range of journals winning awards for his papers in the International Journal of Market Research, the International Journal of Bank Marketing and the European Journal of Marketing.
His latest book is entitled: Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm ( 1st European Edition), written with Valarie Zeithaml, Mary Jo Bitner and Dwayne Gremler.
Recent Projects
- Measuring brand reputation in the public sector (funded by Scottish Enterprise)
- Customer satisfaction measurement and management (funded by Scottish Enterprise)
- Marketing research response rates (funded by MRS)
- Examining customer management practices of High Growth Firms (funded by Scottish Enterprise)
- The use of Web 2.0 and on-line word of mouth by service consumers.
