Overview of Course

Why do buyers around the world make some of the decisions they do? How is buyer behavior influenced by marketing messages, other people, and factors such as culture and context? This course will examine factors influencing the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of products, services, and ideas. The material is based on disciplines such as psychology, sociology, social psychology, and anthropology. Throughout the trip you will put your learning to work, not only to observe your own consumption behaviors, but to be an ethnographic or participant observer of the consumption behaviors of a wide range of culturally diverse buyers and marketers you will encounter in the countries that we visit while traveling around the world. At the conclusion of this course, you will be able to apply buyer behavior concepts from both a managerial and a consumer perspective, and build on your theoretical learning with an intercultural comparison of how course concepts become operationalized around the world.