Bridging research, industry, and qualification frameworks in marketing education: A multi-study investigation

The era of disruptive technological advancements and the growing demand for sustainable development have brought profound changes to the field of business education, with a specific focus on marketing management education. Although marketing educators must reconsider their teaching practices, it is just as crucial to ensure that they align their education-related research with industry trends as well as expectations of qualification frameworks. Therefore, we intended to uncover missing links in the marketing education scholarship in this regard. Guided by the Triple Helix Model, we conducted three interconnected studies examining marketing education research, industry skill signalling, and qualification frameworks. The studies were designed to triangulate global scholarly trends, lead-market industry expectations, and formalised competency frameworks to identify misalignments and missing links in marketing education scholarship. The analysis identified key themes in extant literature, namely experiential learning and pedagogical practices, instructional strategy and learning impact, curriculum and conceptual foundations, strategic engagement and skill integration, ethical assessment and employability, and digital platforms and learning technologies. Consequently, this study highlights an ongoing gap between research on marketing education and real-world priorities. A research agenda is proposed to better align scholarship of learning and teaching in marketing education. • Marketing education research needs to be aligned with tech trends and policy imperatives. • We identified gaps between marketing education research, industry needs, and qualification framework guidelines. • Three studies analysed marketing education literature, LinkedIn job ads, and qualification/professional frameworks. • An agenda is proposed to align marketing education research with industry and policy goals.