Kamran Eshghi

My name is Kamran. I joined Laurentian University (School of Sports Administration, Faculty of Management) in July 2018. I have a Ph.D. in marketing from McMaster University. My research focuses on Marketing Channels, Sports Sponsorship, Marketing-Finance Interface, and Marketing Strategy. More specifically, I am interested in how channel conflict can affect efficient governance and performance outcomes of the channel. In general, my research focused on the impact of strategic (marketing) actions and investments on firm performance and shareholder value. How these firm’s actions affect the firm performance and under which conditions they will benefit from these actions are the focus of my research.

I previously worked at a management consultancy firm that provided service to banks and financial institutions. I also worked at Bell Media (TSN and Discovery channels) as a research analyst. I was also a member of the team that analyzed the 2012 London Olympic Games TV viewership data.

My teaching focused on sports marketing, business analytics, and marketing research. I taught marketing research at McMaster University. I teach Sports Marketing, Business Analytics in Sports, and Sports Business Research at Laurentian University. My teaching is focused on helping students to learn how to use different tools (analytics and research methods) to address managerial problems (improving decision-making).

I am passionate about different sports, but I love soccer (football). I am watching my favorite teams' games in different countries (live) every week. My favorite teams are Persepolis and Manchester United. My favorite soccer tournaments are EPL and European Champions League. On the business side of sports, I am interested in sports sponsorship and analytics. 

I also like swimming, jogging, stand-up paddling. Sudbury and Laurentian University offer a lot to do these types of sports activities during the year. I like the Laurentian campus, specifically the trails and the beach. My favorite place on campus is the Brenda Wallace reading room.

• Ph.D. in Business Administration (Marketing), DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada (2018)
• Master of Business Administration (MBA- Marketing), University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran (2009)

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (BSc-Software Engineering), Azad University, Karaj, Iran (2006)

Associate Professor of Marketing

Laurentian University, Faculty of Management, Sports Administration Department, Ontario, Canada

My research interests are focused on developing models that answer substantial marketing questions and ultimately help managers make good decisions. In my dissertation, entitled “Distribution channel conflict: Implications for channel governance and performance”, I investigated the marketing channel conflict and its effect on channel governance and business performance by conducting several independent studies spanning different research methods. One of the questions I tried to respond to is whether franchise contracts are changed following litigations and how? Understanding this will allow such channel partners to craft better governance, either through ex-ante contractual provisions or ex-post adjustments. I also sought to challenge the received wisdom that conflict is bad. While there are snippets of information in the research literature that claims conflict can sometimes be good for business, no empirical study directly addresses this. I addressed this very fundamental question directly by estimating whether there is an inverted U-shaped relation between the degree of conflict and franchise performance. As it turns out, empirical results show that indeed there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between performance and conflict.

Besides marketing channels and channel conflict, I am also interested in exploring the impact of different marketing actions and investments on firm performance (Marketing-finance interface). There is a huge body of research on this topic. But still, there are inconsistencies about the impact of various marketing actions and investments such as sports sponsorship, price increases, payment methods, and marketing alliances on the shareholder value and performance. Currently, I am working on these topics. Finally, I am working on two other lines of research: innovation alliances and the impact of new technologies such as blockchain on firm performance. 

Kamran received the SSHRC Insight Grant (2024) for the project "Drivers and performance of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) Adoption: Evidence from the Retail Industry"

Kamran received the SSHRC Insight Development Grant (2020) for the project "The potential impact of the adoption of Cryptocurrencies by firms: hype or a wise investment?"

Kamran was a recipient of the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship – Doctoral from (SSHRC) (2014-2017) during his P.hD. at McMaster. He was awarded the Harry Lyman Hooker Senior Fellowship and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) (2013-2014).

Astvansh, V. & Eshghi, K., Shahriari, H., & Shi, W. (2025). How Can a Firm Suppress Shareholders' Punitive Reaction to Its Disengagement from a Geopolitically Uncertain Market?, Journal of Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429251349386 

Eshghi, K., & Farivar, Samira. (2024). The Addition of New Payment Method and Shareholder Value: Evidence from Cryptocurrency Adoption, Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce. https://doi.org/10.1080/10919392.2024.2415746 

Sadeh, F. Eshghi, K., & Eslami, H. (2024). Contract Design and Maintaining Sales Leadership: Evidence from Franchise Systems, Industrial Marketing Management, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2024.06.009

Eshghi, K. & Astvansh, V.(2023). Stock Investors’ Reaction to Layoff Announcements: A Meta-Analysis. Human Resource Management Journal, https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12532

Astvansh, V. & Eshghi, K. (2023). The effect of regulatory investigation, supplier defect, and product age on stock investors: reaction to a product recall, Journal of Business Research, 167, 114052, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.114052

Eslami, H., Eshghi, K., & Sadeh, F. (2023). The Impact of Premature R&D Alliance Termination on Shareholder Returns,  Journal of Product and Innovation Management, https://doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12658

Ebrahimi, S., & Eshghi, K. (2022). A meta-analysis of the factors influencing the impact of security breach announcements on stock returns of firms. Electronic Markets, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-022-00550-2.

Purdy, L., Eslami, H., Eshghi, K., & Rod, M. (2022). Technology sourcing and the dark side of open innovation: Evidence from the biopharmaceutical sector. Technovation, 102521. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2022.102521

Eshghi, K. (2022). Are sports sponsorship announcements good news for shareholders? A meta-analysis. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 39(1), 268-287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2021.04.003

Eshghi, K., Shahriari, H., & Ray, S. (2021). Sports Sponsorship Announcements and Marketing Capability, Journal of Sport Management.1(aop), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.2020-0294​

Eshghi, K., & Ray, S. (2021). Conflict and performance in channels: a meta-analysis. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 49(2), 327-349. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00751-1

Eshghi, K. (2020). The Impact of Sports Sponsorship Announcements on the Stock Market Returns: A systematic Literature Review. International Journal of Sport Management, 21 (October), 1-49.

Eshghi, K., and Ray, S. (2019). Managing Channel Conflict: Insights from the Current Literature. in “Handbook of Research on Distribution Channels.”  Editors: James Brown, Rajiv Dant, and Charles Ingene. Edward Elgar Publications.