From Sept. 1998 to April 2000, my employment with Hisense Group in QingDao City, Shandong Province (one of the largest manufacturers of electrical appliances in China) was a major opportunity to practice what I had learned. The second year I joined the Group, the most fierce price warfare happened to China’s electrical appliances industry. Manufacturers reduced the prices of their products to unprecedented low levels in order to maximize their market share. As an act of market competition, the Marketing Department where I worked launched Traveling Expositions of Hisense Products. As one of the four key personnel of the department, I planned and organized a series of exhibitions in most major cities in China. Our one-year efforts achieved remarkable market effects. In Shijiazhuan City, for instance, of a total of 30 brands, our sales of televisions and air conditioners accounted for 24% and 18% respectively in 2000. In that year’s performance evaluation, I was awarded the Group’s Model Employee.
My understanding of marketing was enriched and modified by my 2-year practical work experience. To me, marketing was not merely composed of such elements as product designing, promotion through advertising, pricing models, and distribution channels. It also encompassed the analysis of the behavior both of your competitors and of consumers, studies in organization behavior, brand management, and decision-makings. Believing that a more systematic education would contribute to a more successful career, I went back to my alma mater in September 2000 and went on with a Master’s program in Engineering and Management Science in order to gain knowledge on a higher professional level, to follow the most updated academic information, and to improve my managerial caliber.
Backed by my work experience, my academic focus became better-defined and I was more self-motivated in my studies. With a comprehensive coursework covering advanced mathematical planning, decision-making strategies, management statistics, and fuzzy mathematics, I achieved obvious improvement in theoretical knowledge and in the application of tools. I developed broader perspectives and was able to conduct my research from more advanced professional levels. My thesis, entitled A Study of Enterprises’ Strategic Alliances Based on an Analysis of Resource Complementarity, presented a wholly novel explanation of corporate alliances from the perspective of resource integration, a perspective which differed fundamentally from the conventional view held by most scholars which explained the necessity and justification of corporate alliance from the angle of transaction cost and value chain.
Instead of feeling contented with my high GPA for the Master’s program (3.6), I have come to realize how much there is still for me to learn in the field of management, especially in marketing. Most universities in China treat marketing purely as a theoretical course, with neither case analysis nor opportunities for students to practice the theories they have learned. In terms of curriculum, studies in marketing psychology and individual behavior have hardly been undertaken. Moreover, the lack of analytical tools has resulted in insufficient analysis of the market feedback. Realizing that such deficiencies can scarcely be overcome within a short period of time, I believe that a more successful career must be pursued through a Ph.D. program outside China, ideally in a first-rate university in the United States.
With my undergraduate and graduate background in engineering and management science, I would like to focus on one of the following areas in your Ph.D. program: a. marketing management; b. behavioral approaches to marketing or consumer behavior; and c. channels of distribution. I have also drawn up my tentative career objective. I will complete my doctoral program by undertaking extensive researches and carrying out some specific projects. After obtaining my degree, I will seek some teaching experiences in an American university while continuing with advanced researches on the latest research topics. In this way I can keep developing my academic aptitudes. After accumulating sufficient teaching and research experience, I will seek a teaching position in a prestigious university in China where I will share with my future students and colleagues my research findings and the knowledge I have acquired in the United States. I hope to develop myself ultimately into a leading specialist in marketing and management who can contribute to bringing Chinese scholarship in this field onto a more advanced level.