Marketing & International Business

Todd J. Arnold (Ph.D., University of Missouri) is Gary L. Trennepohl Chair and Professor of Marketing in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University. His research interests lie broadly within the areas of the organizational frontlines (service, retailing and sales). His research has been published in several peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, including Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Journal of Management, and Journal of Organizational Behavior, among others. He has eight times received the Spears School of Business Richard W. Poole Research Excellence Award, as well as being awarded the Regents' Distinguished Research Award in 2024. He serves on the editorial review board for the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business Research and Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, as well as serving as associate editor for the Journal of Service Research and European Journal of Marketing. Todd's teaching interests include marketing strategy and consumer behavior. He teaches a majority of his courses in the MBA program at Oklahoma State, and has received the Chandler-Frates & Reitz Graduate Teaching Excellence Award and MBA Teaching Award, as well as the OSU-Tulsa President's Teaching Award. In addition, Todd has taught marketing strategy in the Executive MBA Program for Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. Todd served as co-chair of the 2012 American Marketing Association Summer Educators' Conference.

Melissa Baucum holds a doctorate in marketing from the University of Tennessee. Before pursuing her doctorate, she worked as a researcher in the streaming industry (Hulu - The Walt Disney Company) and at a global market research agency (LRW). Now as an Assistant Professor of Marketing, she collaborates with industry partners to evaluate the short- and long-term implications of managerial interventions in B2B and retailing.

Xiang Fang (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is Associate Professor of Marketing, Director of International Business Program in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University. His research interests include AI, sustainability, brand extension and alliance, emotion, and cross-cultural consumer research. His research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Service Research, Psychology & Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Affairs, and other journals and conference proceedings. Currently, Fang teaches Consumer Behavior and Principles of Marketing (undergraduate). He has received the Spears School of Business Richard W. Poole Research Excellence Award and is a member of the American Marketing Association and the Association for Consumer Research.

Karen E. Flaherty (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts at Amherst) is a Professor of Marketing in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University. Her research interests include the study of sales force leadership, motivation, and performance. Her work has been published in journals such as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, and Industrial Marketing Management, among others. She is the author of a book chapter on Strategic Leadership in Sales for the Oxford Handbook of Sales Management and Sales Strategy. Karen is an active member of AMA and the AMA Sales SIG. 

Tsung-Yiou Hsieh is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University. With a strong foundation in empirical modeling, he leverages quantitative methods—especially causal inference, econometrics, and machine learning—to address managerially relevant questions using observational data. His research explores the causal impact of marketing decisions across diverse metrics to inform strategic decision-making. Dr. Hsieh's substantive interests include marketing analytics, advertising, and digital marketing. He earned his Ph.D. in Marketing from the C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, served as a postdoctoral research associate at Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business, and holds prior degrees from the University of California San Diego (M.S. in Business Analytics) and National Chengchi University (B.S. in Finance).

Dr. Maribeth Kuzmeski is an Associate Professor of Professional Practice in Marketing at Oklahoma State University’s Spears School of Business and Faculty Fellow for Experiential & Applied Learning with OSU Career Services. She teaches Promotional Marketing, Advanced Sports Marketing, Interpersonal Skills, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing, and Name Image & Likeness Personal Branding, and helped launch the Sports Marketing major option.

Dr. Kuzmeski has been recognized extensively for her teaching, leadership and service, including the 2025 Regents Distinguished Teaching Award, OSU Institute for Teaching and Learning Excellence’s 2023 Online Teaching Excellence Award, the Spears School of Business Power of Personal Award, the Spears Online Teaching Award, Outstanding Faculty Member recognition from Fraternity and Sorority Affairs, and the Mortar Board Golden Torch Award for outstanding leadership and service.

A strong advocate for experiential learning and career readiness, Dr. Kuzmeski founded The Brand Squad, an award-winning sports marketing organization that trains students to work directly with OSU student-athletes on Name, Image and Likeness (NIL), personal branding, sponsorships, social media and marketing opportunities. The Brand Squad was named OSU’s Outstanding Student Organization in 2023 and is known for job placements in sports-marketing positions across the United States.

She is also the founder and faculty advisor of the AI Wranglers Club, which helps students explore and responsibly apply artificial intelligence through hands-on learning, and serves as Chair of the Oklahoma State University Athletic Council. She is also faculty advisor to the OSU Marketing Club and previously served as President of The University Club.

Beyond the university, Dr. Kuzmeski is President of Red Zone Marketing, an award-winning marketing consulting firm, and the author of ten books on marketing, business growth, and university textbooks. She brings this extensive professional experience into the classroom, connecting marketing theory with real-world application and career preparation.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, her MBA from The George Washington University, and her Ph.D. in Business Administration from Oklahoma State University.

Felipe M. Affonso is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Oklahoma State University. He received his Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Florida. His research focuses on consumer judgment and decision-making, consumer inference-making, human-AI interaction and technology, and health, environment, and policy.

Miriam McGaugh, PhD is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Business Analytics in the School of Marketing and International Business at Oklahoma State University's Spears School of Business. She is the former Director of Community Epidemiology and Evaluation at the Oklahoma State Department of Health where she led a team of analysts who focused on community-based public health initiatives and worked with county health departments across the state on staffing, patient flow and project planning. Dr. McGaugh's research interests include health care analytics, public health marketing, and social network analysis. Her current courses emphasize descriptive and predictive analytics and several programming languages including SAS, R, and Python and visualization and geographic software including Tableau and ESRI ArcGIS.

Rackley brings 40 years of sales and marketing experience to the classroom and the consulting clients he serves. He authored "Marketing Analytics Roadmap: Methods, Metrics, and Tools" and co-authored "Modern Marketing Principles" and "Services and Experience Marketing".

Ajay Sukhdial (Ph.D., University of Oregon) is Associate Professor of Marketing in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University. His research interests include the role of values and emotions in consumer behavior. His research has been published in the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, Marketing Letters, and Sports Marketing Quarterly among other journals and conference proceedings. Ajay teaches consumer behavior, and international marketing strategy.