Exploring the "quasi-buying process" that marketing lecturers go through when selecting a main textbook for an introductory marketing module

This paper aims to explore an important issue that all module leaders meet: what main textbook should they select to underpin the delivery of a introductory marketing course, bearing in mind that students will be required to buy and use it. Marketing module lecturers in higher education institutions are very likely to support their marketing modules on VLE platforms whilst their recommended marketing textbook has valuable supplementary digital textbook content that can be embedded in VLE modules – a truly "augmented product version creating worthwhile pedagogic added value. A "quasi-buying process" is offered that makes explicit the stages in selecting "main textbooks". This exploratory paper need to followed up by research to find if this model is generally predictive. This author developed this model from his case of piloting the use of publishers' supplementary materials to support their textbooks presented to the British Academy of Marketing Conference in 2007.