Susan Douglas: the “founding mother” of the European Marketing Academy

Susan Douglas: the “founding mother” of the European Marketing Academy

Article Type: Viewpoint From: International Marketing Review, Volume 32, Issue 2.

The marketing academic community in Europe owes a major debt to Susan Douglas.

Her scholarly contributions to the fields of marketing and international business are well known and very important, as evidenced by the high number of citations of her work.

In addition, her contributions to the European Marketing Academy (EMAC) are nonpareil: Susan Douglas has played a major role in the history of EMAC, before it was formally created, at its beginning, and constantly since then. Her vision was for the association to provide a forum for discussing, debating, and exchanging the latest thinking, tools, and techniques in marketing and market research, with a particular focus on Europe.

EMAC before EMAC

From 1973 to 1977, Susan Douglas was an Associate Faculty at the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management (EIASM) in Brussels, while she held her main academic position as an Associate Professor at HEC Paris. During that time, she developed links with other marketing faculty in Europe, which led to her organizing a first European meeting of marketing scholars (all 25 or 30 of them) at HEC in Jouy-en-Josas, putting into practice the key idea of confronting European research traditions in marketing that were very diverse at the time (and have indeed remained very diverse).

This was followed by similar yearly meetings in Berlin, Brussels, and Copenhagen, which can be considered as the forerunners of the EMAC annual conference. Susan Douglas was the initiator of the large, important event that the EMAC conference has become: the main meeting point for all European marketing academics, as well as a conference that attracts many excellent scholars from North America, the Pacific, Asia, and other places all over the World.

The birth of EMAC

This series of meetings led to the creation in April 1975 of a European association of marketing scholars, first named “European Academy for Advanced Studies in Marketing” (the name was later changed to European Marketing Academy). The first president was Philippe Naert, with Susan Douglas as Vice-President (1975-1976). Susan succeeded Philippe in 1976-1977 to become the second president of the association, beginning a long series of activities in the service of EMAC.

The fourth meeting in the series initiated by Susan is also considered as the first formal meeting of the association, hence some discussions among historians on the proper numbering of EMAC conferences.

Susan’s later role at EMAC

Although Susan had left her position in Europe to become a Professor at New York University, she always kept an active role in the association over the years, faithfully attending the yearly conferences till the year before her death. She was a regular presenter on International Marketing topics.

Susan had always and generously offered her time, readily and willingly assisting in promoting and advancing EMAC goals, priorities, and activities. She was remarkable for her good spirit, her openness, her willingness to provide advice and support to young colleagues, her humor.

Over the decades, Susan had contributed significantly to fostering research excellence and capacity development through her involvement in many of EMAC’s doctoral colloquia, which allow European doctoral students to benefit, at the start of their career, from the advice of senior colleagues. To this end, the development of our discipline owes a great deal to her.

In October 2002, the EMAC Executive Committee decided to create a group of “EMAC Fellows,” colleagues with both a distinguished research career and a lasting contribution to EMAC. The Executive committee asked Susan to draw up the initial list of EMAC Fellows, as she appeared as the most qualified person, due to her academic authority, her many contributions to EMAC, and her character. Once the group was created, she was for several years the “Dean of EMAC Fellows,” in charge of leading this distinguished body. She remained very active in that position, for example organizing the election of new EMAC Fellows and planning a special session on the history of EMAC at the EMAC Conference in Ljubljana, a session that was held in her honor after she had passed away.

To honor Susan Douglas, EMAC has given her name to a yearly award, given to the best paper on International Marketing presented at the conference. This fits well with her strong commitment to that field and with her deep interest in being aware of the latest research developments. In this manner, EMAC keeps alive, year after year, her name and memory.

Her EMAC “life” aside, Susan was, as we all know, an outstanding scholar, an exceptional researcher, and a leading light in both marketing and international business. She had held several Executive Board roles within the Academy of International Business (AIB), including vice president and dean of fellows. Susan also contributed in various capacities as chair, co-chair, and faculty member in the American Marketing Association (AMA) annual meetings and doctoral consortia.

Overall, Susan Douglas, often fondly nicknamed the “founding mother,” has played a major role in EMAC, all along its existence. She has kept the best relations with colleagues from many different European countries, working in many different research traditions, while also maintaining links with the American academic community.

Gilles Laurent - INSEEC Business School, Paris, France