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Katherine Sredl

Lecturer, Marketing

Professor Sredl's work has significantly impacted gender studies within marketing by theorizing and demonstrating how change impacts and is impacted by consumers in their everyday life, namely, rituals. She uses her Croatian and American identities to integrate, challenge, and embrace data and theory in her ethnographic research. Her three most cited publications ask how portrayals of gender roles in media impacts consumption, how women respond to globalization in daily rituals, and how consumers in post-conflict markets respond to peace treaties in daily life (Dayton Accord).

As an instructor, her greatest accomplishment is sending lifelong learners into marketing jobs with the knowledge, skills, and emotional intelligence to succeed in the industry and light the world on fire.

Writing cases for the Follett Fellowship has given Sredl, who grew up in a family business, an opportunity to unite that experience with her academic and consulting background in multimedia storytelling.

Education

  • PhD, Communications, College of Media, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Graduate Minor in Balkan Studies
  • MS, Advertising, College of Media, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Graduate Minor in Balkan Studies
  • BA, History, Centre College of Kentucky

Research Interests

  • Marketing
  • Consumer Behavior
  • Advertising
  • Gender
  • Globalization
  • Ethnography
  • Digital Ethnography

Professional/Community Affiliations

  • American Academy of Advertising, 2003-present
  • American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 2003-09
  • American Marketing Association, 2009-present
  • Association for Consumer Research, 2003-present
  • Association for Croatian Studies, an affiliate organization of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), 2017-present
  • Consumer Culture Theory Consortium, 2014-present
  • European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management (EIASM) Community, 2020-present
  • Macromarketing Society, 2003-present

Service to Community

  • Association of Croatian American Professionals, Member, Board of Directors (2021-22; 2024-26), Marketing Committee Chair (2024-26); Chicago Chapter, President (2020-23), Vice President (2023-24)
  • Board of Governors, Westover School, Middlebury, CT, 2012-15
  • Hrvatska Žena Branch 1, Chicago (Croatian Women’s Charity Organization)
  • Croatian Women’s Network, 2017-present

Courses Taught

MBA

  • Digital Marketing
  • Consumer Behavior
  • Advertising Management

Undergraduate

  • Consumer Behavior
  • Fundamentals of Marketing
  • International Marketing
  • Introduction to Marketing
  • Gender and Marketing

Publications/Research Listings

Sredl, K.C. (2018). “Gendered Market Subjectivity: Autonomy, Privilege, and Emotional Subjectivity in Normalizing Post-socialist Neoliberal Ideology,” Consumption Markets & Culture, 21:6, 532-553, https://doi.org/10.1080/10253866.2017.1374950

Sredl, K.C., Shultz, C.J. II, & Brečić, R. (2017). “The Arizona Market: a Marketing Systems Perspective on Pre- and Post-War Developments in Bosnia, with Implications for Sustainable Peace and Prosperity,” Journal of Macromarketing, September, 37, (3), 300-316. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276146717712359

Zayer, L.T., Sredl, K., Parmentier, M.A., & Coleman, C. (2012). “Consumption and Gender Identity in Popular Media: Discourses of Domesticity, Authenticity, and Sexuality,” Consumption Markets & Culture, 15:4, 333-357.

  • Honorable Mention, CMC article of the year, Lead Article, Equal authorship

Awards

  • Croatian Women of Influence Award Recipient, USA in the area of Science and Technology, Croatian Women’s Network/Mreža Hrvatskih Žena, 2024