It wasn\u2019t the promise of a nationally recognized program in her field of consumer research that attracted Stacy Wood to NC State University in 2010. In fact, the university had no reputation in the field at the time.<\/p>\n
But the desire to pursue a new model of interdisciplinary consumer innovation research at the Poole College of Management<\/a> \u2014 combined with funding provided by the Langdon Distinguished University Professorship in Marketing \u2014 brought Wood to Raleigh.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that NC State was setting up a named chair specifically to look at innovation from a consumer-centric point of view showed the university\u2019s level of commitment,\u201d she said. \u201cIt showed the high expectations for the impact this would have on the economy of North Carolina, on the students at NC State and on our outreach to corporate partners in the Triangle. All of these things were apparent to me through the nature of the gift and through the professorship.\u201d<\/p>\n The Langdon Professorship is one of NC State\u2019s Distinguished University chairs and was created by the late J. Lloyd and Madelyn Langdon to recruit nationally recognized faculty at the Poole College of Management. J. Lloyd Langdon was a 1940 graduate of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences<\/a>. The work the professorship supports is more critical than ever before, according to Wood.<\/p>\n \u201cIt puts the end user first in the equation and that\u2019s necessary in this new world of rapid entrepreneurial innovation,\u201d she said. \u201cThe marketplace is so crowded that consumers end up being increasingly powerful in terms of which companies succeed or fail and what innovations are adopted or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Wood\u2019s professorship supported the development of NC State\u2019s Consumer Innovation Collaborative (CIC). The CIC fosters corporate-academic partnerships that allow Wood and her MBA students \u2014 together with graduate students from other colleges, including Design, Textiles, Agriculture and Life Sciences and Engineering \u2014 to collaborate with large companies to conduct state-of-the-art consumer research. She referred to the CIC as a \u201cthree-legged stool\u201d benefiting students, the university, and partner companies like Clorox, Bayer, Cisco, Quintiles, and Cotton Inc.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this lovely recruiting pipeline for the companies,\u201d said Wood, who serves as the CIC\u2019s executive director. \u201cThere\u2019s this pedagogical aspect to giving our students a unique analytic skill. And then, for us as academics, it\u2019s this connection to the real world that helps us to avoid being an ivory tower business school, but rather aspire to be one that really hears and conducts research on what senior-level executives are wrestling with.\u201d<\/p>\n The interdisciplinary nature of the CIC is especially beneficial, according to Wood. She\u2019s particularly pleased with connections between the CIC and the College of Design. The focus on user experience in the College of Design closely aligns with the CIC\u2019s concentration on consumer-centric innovation.<\/p>\n The opportunity to work directly with companies is a distinct advantage over programs at other universities that rely on case studies, said Dan VanHoozer, one of Wood\u2019s MBA students and a Consumer Innovation Scholar.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re doing actual work on complex issues, and I think that prepares us \u2014 the second we graduate and leave \u2014 to be successful in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile we have a mentor, and there is a structure to support us, there are problems and challenges that come up every day that look like real-world challenges. We take the initiative to attempt to solve those every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n Wood, who was elected and recently began a three-year term as president of the Association for Consumer Research, the field\u2019s international academic association,\u00a0 said running a program like the CIC would not be possible without philanthropy from alumni and friends like the Langdons, as well as the confidence of university and college leaders.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is specialized, apprentice-style learning,\u201d she said. \u201cWe walk with them every step of the way. I watch every analysis so when we have a final report or a final presentation, I can attest that it\u2019s work at a very high caliber.<\/p>\n \u201cThe students get to see the entire process of research. They see all the steps that are challenging but necessary for literature review, data collection, and hypothesis testing. They see the good and the bad. If mistakes are made, they see how they\u2019re fixed. If going in one direction is not profitable, they see how to turn it around. They see the whole process, and for a professor that takes a lot of time. It is something that has to be supported at the university level.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This post was originally published<\/a> in Giving News.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false,"raw":"It wasn\u2019t the promise of a nationally recognized program in her field of consumer research that attracted Stacy Wood to NC State University in 2010. In fact, the university had no reputation in the field at the time.\r\n\r\nBut the desire to pursue a new model of interdisciplinary consumer innovation research at the Poole College of Management<\/a> \u2014 combined with funding provided by the Langdon Distinguished University Professorship in Marketing \u2014 brought Wood to Raleigh.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe idea that NC State was setting up a named chair specifically to look at innovation from a consumer-centric point of view showed the university\u2019s level of commitment,\u201d she said. \u201cIt showed the high expectations for the impact this would have on the economy of North Carolina, on the students at NC State and on our outreach to corporate partners in the Triangle. All of these things were apparent to me through the nature of the gift and through the professorship.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe Langdon Professorship is one of NC State\u2019s Distinguished University chairs and was created by the late J. Lloyd and Madelyn Langdon to recruit nationally recognized faculty at the Poole College of Management. J. Lloyd Langdon was a 1940 graduate of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences<\/a>. The work the professorship supports is more critical than ever before, according to Wood.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt puts the end user first in the equation and that\u2019s necessary in this new world of rapid entrepreneurial innovation,\u201d she said. \u201cThe marketplace is so crowded that consumers end up being increasingly powerful in terms of which companies succeed or fail and what innovations are adopted or not.\u201d\r\n\r\nWood\u2019s professorship supported the development of NC State\u2019s Consumer Innovation Collaborative (CIC). The CIC fosters corporate-academic partnerships that allow Wood and her MBA students \u2014 together with graduate students from other colleges, including Design, Textiles, Agriculture and Life Sciences and Engineering \u2014 to collaborate with large companies to conduct state-of-the-art consumer research. She referred to the CIC as a \u201cthree-legged stool\u201d benefiting students, the university, and partner companies like Clorox, Bayer, Cisco, Quintiles, and Cotton Inc.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s this lovely recruiting pipeline for the companies,\u201d said Wood, who serves as the CIC\u2019s executive director. \u201cThere\u2019s this pedagogical aspect to giving our students a unique analytic skill. And then, for us as academics, it\u2019s this connection to the real world that helps us to avoid being an ivory tower business school, but rather aspire to be one that really hears and conducts research on what senior-level executives are wrestling with.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe interdisciplinary nature of the CIC is especially beneficial, according to Wood. She\u2019s particularly pleased with connections between the CIC and the College of Design. The focus on user experience in the College of Design closely aligns with the CIC\u2019s concentration on consumer-centric innovation.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe opportunity to work directly with companies is a distinct advantage over programs at other universities that rely on case studies, said Dan VanHoozer, one of Wood\u2019s MBA students and a Consumer Innovation Scholar.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe\u2019re doing actual work on complex issues, and I think that prepares us \u2014 the second we graduate and leave \u2014 to be successful in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile we have a mentor, and there is a structure to support us, there are problems and challenges that come up every day that look like real-world challenges. We take the initiative to attempt to solve those every step of the way.\u201d\r\n\r\nWood, who was elected and recently began a three-year term as president of the Association for Consumer Research, the field\u2019s international academic association,\u00a0 said running a program like the CIC would not be possible without philanthropy from alumni and friends like the Langdons, as well as the confidence of university and college leaders.\r\n\r\n\u201cThis is specialized, apprentice-style learning,\u201d she said. \u201cWe walk with them every step of the way. I watch every analysis so when we have a final report or a final presentation, I can attest that it\u2019s work at a very high caliber.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe students get to see the entire process of research. They see all the steps that are challenging but necessary for literature review, data collection, and hypothesis testing. They see the good and the bad. If mistakes are made, they see how they\u2019re fixed. If going in one direction is not profitable, they see how to turn it around. They see the whole process, and for a professor that takes a lot of time. It is something that has to be supported at the university level.\u201d\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n "},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Professor Stacy Wood helped shape NC State’s consumer innovation research program that benefits students, and companies, alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3018,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"ncstate_wire","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"caption\":\"\",\"displayCategoryID\":19}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,460,28,19,323],"tags":[1784,496,245,272,274,330,25,413],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-3016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-management","category-cic","category-faculty-and-staff","category-giving","category-graduate","tag-_from-newswire-collection-59","tag-cals","tag-cic","tag-college-of-design","tag-college-of-textiles","tag-hidden-homepage-feature","tag-innovation","tag-interdisciplinary"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":19,"name":"Giving","slug":"giving","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":19,"taxonomy":"category","description":"Stories about Poole College philanthropy.","parent":0,"count":209,"filter":"raw"},"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3016"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19384,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3016\/revisions\/19384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3016"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=3016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}