مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

E-marketing is a multidisciplinary field that draws knowledge from the broader parent areas of business, commerce, information and communications technologies (herein referred to as ICTs). In addition, E-marketing courses are not limited to marketing programs/degrees, they are increasingly being offered as elective or core courses in finance, accounting, operation management and other majors. Therefore, it is important for those who work on curricula development in business and management schools to understand the current status and developments in E-marketing education. A review of the literature shows that there is little agreement among academics about what can be considered within the domain of E-marketing. Such a disagreement, although might sound fruitful from a philosophical perspective, causes confusion among academics particularly those who work on programs design at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Questions faced include: ▪ Shall we use the title E-marketing, digital marketing, internet marketing or social media marketing? ▪ What are the main topics covered in E-marketing courses, particularly the introductory ones? ▪ In general marketing programs, shall lecturers teach issues such as mobile marketing and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) in dedicated courses or as part of one comprehensive E-marketing course?

Some studies tried to address the above-stated issues in the general E-business context (e.g. Burkey, 2007; Kotb, Roberts, & Stoner, 2013; Fusilier & Durlabhji, 2010; Mehta, Shah, & Morgan, 2005). Few efforts were dedicated to E-marketing, some of ese efforts focused on the increasing importance of E-marketing, particularly social media, and how it can change the traditional marketing major (e.g. Brocato, White, Bartkus, & Brocato, 2015; Wymbs, 2011) while others addressed the Emethods, such as Twitter and Wikis, and how they are used in teaching marketing (e.g. Granitz & Koernig, 2011; Lowe & Laffey, 2011). However, no recent efforts were found to address the questions raised in this study.

The following part of the paper discusses the “e-dilemma” and the transition from E-business to E-marketing; this will be followed by the methodology used to analyze E-marketing courses and programs. The final part presents implications, limitations and future research. It is noteworthy that this study uses the word “course” to describe a unit of teaching, normally individual subject, that typically lasts for one academic term (i.e. E-marketing or marketing management), while “program” refers to the overall offering of courses that leads to academic degree (i.e. Bachelor of Business Administration in E-marketing or MBA in marketing). Also, please note that the terms E-marketing, internet marketing and digital marketing are used interchangeably unless stated otherwise, bearing in mind that “E-marketing” is the classical title and that “digital marketing” is gaining increasing popularity in the academic world, especially in the United States, as will be demonstrated later in the “Methodology and Insights” section.