Cmo for the First Two

CMO

For the first two questions, the biographies of female marketing executives will be the main subject to study. The target n=10. It is a good idea to have males marketing executives as a control group, to see if there are any differences. I think n=10 for the control group is also good. If we need more in the sample size to make the results statistically significant, that can probably be done. I would also consider marketing heads at subsidiaries or business units that are sufficiently large. For example, the CMO at Pepsi is male, but the CMO at Gatorade is female, and that is a billion-dollar business.

The third question will have n=20. The control will be the performance of those companies prior, so all 20 companies will have needed to have a male CMO precede the female.

There should be enough information for a 40-page paper, yes. There is a lot of research on the glass ceiling, female leadership styles and gender norms, and these are concepts that underlie the issue of the barriers facing females in the marketing profession.

3) the paper will have to do a better job of tying the concepts of gender pay gap and female suitability for marketing than the one paragraph explaining the problem statement did. The paper intends to show that women are suited for executive level positions in marketing, and right now they are underrepresented at that level. There are a host of possible reasons, and those can be explained. The way to counter the different reasons for not hiring females into these positions is to have some facts to show that females are good marketing executives. The output of this study will contribute to the argument in favor of removing these barriers for women. In that sense, it is important to understand what those barriers are; they are part of the discussion.

4) This information is often published. Not all companies publish bios of their executives, but many do, so at the very least the educational background and recent work history would be available. Take a look at Pepsi's website to see an example of the bios you often find on corporate websites: http://www.pepsico.com/Company/Leadership.html

5) the key to this question is that it is exploratory. The process for answering this question is to gather information and see if there are patterns. I think the objective of this question is to build the groundwork for later studies that would test the key success factors identified. At this point, we simply need to identify if there are any common key success factors among the female marketing leaders we have identified. It will be harder to identify factors like personality traits, but work history would be something that could be determined.