Foley releases latest edition of international marketing textbook

09/07/2011 3:46 PM

By Elise Dismer ’13

Over the last three years, Jim Foley, director of the Bradley’s International Trade Center, has been writing a new textbook to get students excited about opportunities in international business and marketing.

“I will be happy,” Foley said, “If students who read the textbook say, ‘I want to do that. I see me in those topics. That is something I want to be a part of.’”

Foley, a certified global business professional (CGBP), was asked to write the 10th edition of “International Marketing” by Vern Terpstra, the very book Foley used when he first started teaching international marketing courses at Bradley in 1995.

“That book is what saved me when I started teaching,” Foley said. “It was a landmark book; Tepstra was the guru of international marketing. So I knew how important this textbook was.”

Foley started working on the latest edition of the textbook on his own time: on nights, weekends and even during his travels abroad.

“Writing is a labor of love,” he said. “It’s great if you feel passionate about your profession and you want to help other people understand that.”

In addition to revising outdated examples from the ninth edition, Foley decided to change the book in three main ways: by giving the text a more clear and practical tone, by shortening the length and by aligning it with CGBP standards so students could see a direct application of the knowledge in the book.

“It was very important to me that students be able to use in their career what they learn from the book,” Foley said.

Foley said his attitude toward applicable learning is not unique to the experienced teachers at Bradley University.

“At Bradley, we want to position ourselves not just as being a great place to go to college or as having great interaction between faculty and students,” Foley said,  “but also as a place that has leaders in our fields.”