Hyunsoon (Sean) Yim, Ph.D.

Hyunsoon (Sean) Yim, Ph.D.
Discipline Lead, Marketing
Associate Professor of Marketing, Marketing and MBA programs
271 Burke

Mailing Address:
PENN STATE BEHREND
281 BURKE CENTER
ERIE PA 16563

Dr. Sean Yim, associate professor of marketing at the Black School of Business, earned his Ph.D. from Washington State University in 2015. His research interests are centered on interfirm marketing strategies and the financial implications, with special emphasis on the topics of innovation / new product development, sustainability / CSR, and marketing metrics. He has taught several marketing core courses in the past, such as product management, the foundation of marketing, international business, international marketing, and marketing research. He had over eight years of industry experience at multinational corporations such as General Electric and LG Electronics. His primary expertise in the industries lies on quality management systems, regulatory affairs, and strategic planning & management. He earned his M.B.A. degree at Krannert School of Management, Purdue University in 2008.

Teaching 

Courses Taught

  • MKTG 445: Global Marketing
  • MKTG 485: Business-to-Business Marketing

Teaching Philosophy

Continuous knowledge seeking and practical relevance are central values of my teaching philosophy. Such values have led me to form teaching goals: enjoyable, collaborative, and creative learning experiences facilitated by up-to-date teaching methods and materials, involving applications of social media to marketing strategy, use of interactive live video chats in online courses, and unique learning-by-doing exercises. I believe that these experiences will help future business professionals be equipped with the relevant competencies, such as intellectual capacity, professionalism, and interpersonal skills.

In my classes, learning starts from curiosity of and inquiries to the current market phenomena. I encourage students to keep questioning to precisely understand what we observe and experience. I have confirmed that this approach provides a solid stepping-stone to transform students into critical thinkers.

I also believe that the learning in the classroom should be highly germane to real business world. Therefore, I emphasize the importance of marketing metrics, which allows students to leave school ready for joining managerial discussions from day one of their professional career. I anticipate that such approaches incorporated with my research and industry experiences will facilitate students’ hands-on and holistic learning experiences. In order to actualize my pedagogical philosophy, I have set more specific teaching goals as follows:

  1. Enjoyable Learning Experience – Learning should be fun; consequently, I encourage students to co-create their own learning experiences as proactively engaging in the discussions with peers. This is one of my missions as an educator to satisfy students as consumers of education. However, the emphasis on the enjoyable learning should never obstruct the facilitation of the learning objectives, such as analytical thinking, professional skills development, and practical applications of classroom materials.
  2. Collaborative Learning Experience – I emphasize the mutual learning experience between students and myself. I encourage constructive criticism and non-obstructive idea exchanges among students. Students are rewarded for performing beyond passive learning based solely upon the textbook when they actively participate in and insightfully contribute to the class discussions.
  3. Creative Learning Experience – Along with other goals, I strive to provide students with creative and unique learning experiences. Discussions and applications of social networking platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, etc.) in business topics, which are highly relevant to and inseparable from current students’ lifestyles, become abundantly common in almost every facet of marketing practice. Accordingly, I aim to further motivate students to learn more and prepare for future business career by providing unique experiences. For example, I provide mock interviews of jobs that are relevant to the course topics. In such exercises, students can learn by applying the course concepts in the job interview situations—the student’s very first real business world exposure—and demonstrate their potential as future marketing professionals.

Research Philosophy

Integrity is the top priority in my research philosophy. It is well embedded in my research projects and my research goals. I strongly believe that I as a marketing researcher should be responsible for all the messages that I convey to academics and practice. From research idea generation to final research report, integrity is a core academic value that cannot be compromised for any other values. As I preserve the value, knowledge development and contributions to practice become more meaningful. The emphasis on integrity and my industry experiences in multinational corporations have led me to focus on four main research areas:

  1. Strategic Alliance – As business collaboration becomes more essential to survive in current competitive business environment, the integrity-related values (e.g., trust and commitment) between collaborative firms are critical factors that determine performance of the collaboration. Emphasizing this important business mechanism, my research investigates sustainable business strategies in the domain of strategic alliance. They include alliance partner selection based on cultural perspectives, network positioning strategy in a firm’s alliance network, and the determinant factors of alliance extension, among others.
  2. Innovation – The importance of new product development and innovation has been of great interest to academics and practitioners for decades. Integrity-based practices in business collaborations also play an important role in a firm’s innovation strategies. As one’s belief of partner’s integrity is assured, the process of knowledge sharing and new product development can be accelerated and optimized. My innovation research focuses on the interfirm relational factors and its (dis-) advantageous impact on innovation outcomes. Such research involves the determinant interfirm factors that enhance effectiveness and efficiency of innovation outcomes, the role of resource diversity in the collaboration, and the effect of alliance network position, to list a few.
  3. Corporate Social Responsibility – As society grows and the boundary of corporate’s stakeholders expands, modern firms face challenges of increasing demands in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Corporate integrity in society and its socially responsible initiatives are often questioned and criticized for potential image washing. However, I strongly believe in the intrinsic social functions of CSR initiatives and the benefits to the broad range of stakeholders. To encourage more firms to march to this business trend of CSR, I am committed to support CSR initiatives as a sustainable business strategy in my research. Consequently, my CSR research focuses on the effectiveness and efficiency of CSR initiatives in various contexts, such as (1) the role of CSR as a quality signal on financial performance; (2) cultural view of CSR with respect to its role in interfirm learning and interfirm reputation rub-off processes; and (3) the role of CSR in resource base view and its impact on shareholder’s responses.
  4. Market Metrics – From my managerial experiences, I have learned that every single dollar in business is a subject of evaluation for its effectiveness and efficiency. This rule applies in any business, any industry and any country in the world. I believe that this universal rule must also be applied in marketing research. With valid and reliable measures of marketing strategies, I can not only provide empirical evidence of the effectiveness and efficiency but also be responsible for my messages to all audiences of my research. This belief is well aligned with my teaching philosophy, such that my research and teaching should not be limited to convey textbook knowledge, but diligently address the questions in real business world. Thus, I expect to provide marketing managers with strong rationales of marketing strategies, and better prepare future marketing professionals with strong business languages.

As such, my research philosophy, integrity, is the quintessence of my research interests and a strong guideline for how I approach any research project. Jim Collin’s book, Good to Great, shows how firms become sustainably competitive over time. My goal as a marketing researcher is not accomplished by being a “Good” researcher. I am convinced that my ontological and epistemological value of integrity in research continues to nurture me as a sustainable “Great” researcher in future.

 

My current research fundamentally focuses on and pursues empirical generalizations with the analysis of large secondary datasets on how interfirm marketing strategies impact business outcomes, with special emphases on the following topics:
1. Relationship Marketing / Strategic Alliances in dyadic and network perspectives
2. Innovation and New Product Development Strategies
3. Marketing Capabilities and Firm Value
4. Sustainability / Corporate Social Responsibility
5. Marketing-Finance Interface

Resource Diversity on Post-Alliance Innovation Outcomes, Australasian Marketing Journal - 2022
Collaborators: Richie Liu, Co-Author; Sakdipon Juasrikul, Co-Author

The Secret to Linking CSR to Financial Profitability, Keller Center Research Report - December, 2020
Collaborators: Younghan Bae, Co-Author; Hyunwoo Lim, Co-Author; Jaehwan Kwon

Linking Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Financial Performance: The Roles of Corporate Reputation and Marketing Capability, European Journal of Marketing - July, 2019
Collaborators: Younghan Bae, Co-Author; Hyunwoo Lim, Co-Author; Jaehwan Kwon

Do Cross-border Alliances with MNEs from Developed Economies Create Firm Value for MNEs from Emerging Economies?, Journal of Business Research - December, 2018
Collaborators: Sakdipon Juasrikul, Co-Author; Arvin Sahaym, Co-Author; Richie Liu, Co-Author

Social Capital and Supplier Performance: The Role of Information Sharing, Journal of Marketing Thought - November 28, 2017
Collaborators: Jihoon Lee, Primary Author; Ikseung Kim, Co-Author

Interfirm Relational Strategies and Innovation: The Role of Interfirm Relational Traits and Firm Resources, Customer Needs and Solutions - September, 2015
Collaborators: Brett Josephson, Co-Author; Jean Johnson, Co-Author; Sanjay Sisodiya, Co-Author

Ph D, Marketing, Washington State University

MBA, Marketing and Strategy, Purdue University

BE, Industrial Engineering, Dongguk University