Business college names new senior associate dean

Eric Spangenberg, professor of marketing at Washington State University, has been promoted to the position of senior associate dean of the College of Business and Economics.

Spangenberg has served as associate dean for faculty affairs and research since 2002. In his new position, he is charged by CBE Dean Len Jessup with overseeing the day-to-day operations of the college and making executive decisions in Jessup’s absence. The dean is serving as the interim president of the WSU Foundation while a search to fill that position is underway.

“Eric has made a tremendous impact on the college by leading the faculty and lending his expertise to several of our initiatives, such as the recent reaccreditation of the college,” Jessup said. “I am confident that his leadership and many contributions in his new role will continue to help us ascend to new levels of quality and excellence.”

Spangenberg holds the Geoff and Florence Maughmer Freedom Philosophy Endowed Chair, his second high honor in the college. Previously, he was the first professor to hold the Gardner O. Hart Faculty Excellence Distinguished Professorship. Endowed chairs and distinguished professorships are awarded to business professors who are leadingteachers and researchers. The WSU CBE has 13 such positions actively filled at this time.

Spangenberg is an alumnus of the college, having earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1982. With an MBA from Portland State University and a doctorate in marketing/social psychology from the University of Washington, he returned to WSU as an assistant professor in marketing in 1990. He was promoted to associate professor in 1997 and was granted tenure. In 2003 he was promoted to full professor. He is also a graduate of Kelso High School and Lower Columbia College. He is the son of Judy and Rick Spangenberg of Longview.

He is renowned as a leading researcher and productive scholastic author. His streams of inquiry include the normative relevance and theoretical underpinnings of self-prophecy as an influence technique for encouraging socially desirable behaviors, measurement of unobservable constructs, consumer skepticism toward advertising, assessing consumer reactions to new Internet businesses, and environmental psychology.

Spangenberg is an award-winning teacher, and his widely cited publications include more than 25 refereed journal articles and an equal number of book chapters and refereed conference proceedings. He serves on the editorial review board for the Journal of Consumer Research and conducts reviews for a dozen or more scholarly journals.

In fall 2001, he was taped by the British Broadcasting Corp. for a documentary series on retail environments and consumer responses research he conducted with fellow faculty and graduate students. The series was aired on the BBC-2 in Great Britain and Europe, and on The Learning Channel in the United States. Spangenberg’s research has also been featured on CBS, in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and a number of other major news outlets worldwide.

Spangenberg has served WSU as vice chair of the Faculty Senate, chair of the WSU Faculty Affairs Committee and on numerous university and college committees.