Education

• PhD, Louisiana State University, 1972
• MBA, Florida State University, 1966
• BA, Florida State University, 1964

Professional Activities

O.C. Ferrell is the James T. Pursell, Sr. Eminent Scholar in Ethics and Director of the Center for Ethical Organizational Cultures at Auburn University. He has served on the faculty at Belmont University, the University of New Mexico, University of Wyoming, Colorado State University, University of Memphis, Texas A&M University, University of Michigan, Illinois State University, and Southern Illinois University.

Ferrell holds a doctorate from Louisiana State University in marketing, an MBA in marketing as well as a bachelor's in sociology from Florida State University. Ferrell is president-elect of the Academy of Marketing Science. He was formerly vice president of Publications for the Academy of Marketing Science and was past president of the Academic Council of the American Marketing Association. He serves on the board of the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy’s Center for the Public Trust and is also an advisory board member of Savant Learning. 

He serves on the Academic Advisory Committee for the Direct Selling Education Foundation. He received the AMS Cutco/Vector Distinguished Educator Award for contributions to the marketing discipline. Additional recognition includes being the first recipient of the Marketing Education Innovation Award for the Marketing Management Association, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Macromarketing Society, and special award for service to doctoral students from the Southeast Doctoral Consortium. He has chaired 13 dissertations with his former students currently serving as Deans, Associate Provost, CIBER Directors, journal editors, among others. Ferrell is co-author of several leading textbooks including Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases (12^th edition), Marketing (19^th edition), Marketing Strategy (6^th edition), Business and Society (4^th edition), Management (3^rd edition), and Introduction to Business (12^th edition).

He has published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, AMS Review, Journal of Business Research, as well as others. He writes weekly business ethics summaries and reviews for the Wall Street Journal with a subscriber list of over 6000. Ferrell has served as an expert witness is some high profile ethics, legal, and marketing cases.