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Event honors Jerome Williams (PhD鈥�86), a distinguished researcher and leader in business education.

When Jerome Williams earned his PhD from the 精品SM在线影片 in 1986, he was the only African-American to complete a doctoral degree in marketing that year.

Even that achievement was only the first step in a pathbreaking career, in which Williams became world-renowned for his influential research on racial discrimination in businesses鈥攆or which he was made a fellow of the American Marketing Association鈥攁nd leadership roles at several prestigious universities, most recently as executive vice chancellor and provost of Rutgers University鈥檚 Newark campus.

Williams鈥� death earlier this year was a devastating loss to the 铿乪ld of marketing; in November, to honor his accomplishments, the Diverse Doctorates in Business program at Leeds celebrated his many contributions with a mini-conference conference on business bias and blunders in a diverse marketplace. A recording of the symposium .

A scholar who 'created so much good in the world'

John Lynch, a distinguished professor of marketing at Leeds and the event's host, said Williams鈥� work 鈥渃reated so much good in the world through rigorous research on racial discrimination in the marketplace鈥攑articularly in small-business lending. By co-founding the PhD Project, he helped increase the diversity of PhD pipelines and business school faculties around the world.鈥�

Leeds invited two distinguished marketing scholars to present their recent work relating to how businesses navigate racially diverse marketplaces.

David Wooten, a professor of diversity and social transformation at the University of Michigan鈥檚 Ross School of Business, opened the symposium by discussing his research into 听how marketing actions can 鈥� perhaps unintentionally 鈥� create 鈥渢hreat cues鈥� or 鈥渟afety cues鈥� to diverse customers鈥� racial identities. 听Wooten found that releasing products like Band-Aids and crayons in colors mimicking different skin hues were appreciated and celebrated by consumers as an action accepting individual differences. Not surprisingly, products that called to mind blackface鈥攊n any form, from dolls to shoes鈥攚ere shunned, especially from those with lower confidence in their racial identities.

The next speaker, Glenn Christensen, of Brigham Young University鈥檚 Marriott School of Business, was a longtime collaborator of Williams. They focused their research around small-business lending practices that affect choice, including barriers to free choice and how it de铿乶es individuals in a free society.听

Entrepreneurship is an important form of free choice, and 30 percent of jobs are held by self-employed individuals. But starting a business typically requires financing; Christensen鈥檚 research with Williams involved conducting mystery shopper applications for small-business loans, with identical credentials presented by potential borrowers who were Black, white or Latino. In the process of pre-qualifying loan applicants, bank employees were much more likely to provide information on loan fees, interest rates and terms to white customers, encouraging their applications. Minority applicants were much more frequently asked to provide financial statements and tax returns, and were asked about personal savings, credit card debt and auto loan debt, despite equivalent creditworthiness.听

Bank executives were sobered to learn how much good business they were losing by their practices of racial discrimination in the loan application process.听

鈥淲e are so grateful for Dr. Wooten and Dr. Christensen for presenting their research on how businesses navigate racially diverse marketplaces,鈥� Lynch said. 鈥淚 hope that as more schools start offering research-based courses on multicultural marketing, businesses will do better鈥攁nd so will all of us in society.鈥�

Why Leeds听 Diverse Doctorates in Business听 Leeds PhD Program