Jean-Claude Usunier, an eminent Professor at the Faculty of Business and Economics at UNIL, was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Fribourg at its 2017 Dies academicus ceremony, which took place on Wednesday, November 15.
A pioneer in international and intercultural marketing, Jean-Claude Usunier was appointed Doctor Honoris Causa on the recommendation of the University of Fribourg’s Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences. He delivered a lecture at the university on Tuesday, November 14 on the topic “Product Ethnicity: How consumers associate products with countries". Find out more about his reaction to the announcement of the appointment.
What does this news mean to you personally and in academic terms?
It is a recognition of my contribution to the field of international marketing and cross-cultural studies, and to some extent, to my credo: even – and perhaps even more so – in a broadly globalized world, cultural differences are still vitally important in marketing and international business negotiations.
What are your current plans in the field of marketing and international management?
I am just finishing a book on Intercultural Business Negotiations, which will be published by Taylor and Francis/Routledge in 2018. I also have two research articles that are pending publication, one for Advances in Global Marketing and the other, subject to final acceptance, with Joerg Stolz (Faculty of Theology at the University of Lausanne) in the Journal of Management, Spirituality, and Religion. As I have been contributing to the Interdisciplinarity Platform (PI group) at the University of Lausanne for just over 10 years, we are in the process of submitting a book based on our reflections for Editions Odile Jacob; if it is not accepted, we hope to be successful with Presses Universitaires de France.
You also received the Hans D. Thorelli Prize with Prof. Ghislaine Cestre in August 2017 for an article published in the Journal of International Marketing. What is your reaction to this series of appointments and honors?
I am very grateful to HEC Lausanne and the University of Lausanne for giving me the resources to achieve my ambitions. And I must pay tribute to my colleague Ghislaine Cestre, with whom I have collaborated and had an excellent working relationship in the Marketing Department of HEC Lausanne for around 15 years.
Overview of Prof. Usunier’s academic career
Jean-Claude Usunier has been a professor of marketing at HEC Lausanne, the University of Strasbourg, the University of Grenoble and the European Business School in Paris (ESCP). His research on international and intercultural marketing has been published in prestigious international journals. He was among the first researchers to examine international marketing and cross-cultural business negotiations from an academic perspective, with – among other publications – a book published in 1996 and 2003, numerous lectures, teaching materials and critical reflections on teaching international marketing and cross-cultural business negotiations.
His classic book, International and Cross-Cultural Management Research (1998), made a significant contribution to the development of international and comparative research on management. Sage Publications published a completely revised and renamed edition in 2017, with Hester Van Herk (Free University of Amsterdam) and Julie Lee (University of Western Australia) as co-authors. For several decades, his research activities have stood out for their resolutely interdisciplinary focus, as evidenced by his choice of co-authors and journals. In publications such as AIDS and Business (2009) and Religions as Brands (2014), he has also tackled some unusual topics, analyzing them from a business management perspective.