Faculty Profile for Dr. Debbie Thorne

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Debbie M. Thorne, Ph.D. is the special assistant to the provost and a tenured professor of marketing at Texas State University. For the FY25 academic year, she is residency at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte through the American Council on Education's executive development program. Texas State, a Hispanic Serving Institution, is in the flourishing Austin - San Antonio innovation corridor and serves 40,000 students across multiple campuses and more than 200 academic programs at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels. With over $140 million in total research expenditures and significant growth in doctoral programs, the university is poised to transition to R1 status while amplifying its historical commitment to student success, economic and cultural impact, and excellence across the disciplines.

From 2017 to 2024, she served as the senior vice provost at Texas State and provided leadership on effective resource allocation of a $215 million centralized budget, faculty recruitment and retention, faculty success, tenure, promotion, and performance management, accreditation standards, 50+ policies, and the shared governance climate for 2,000 faculty members and academic administrators. Dr. Thorne joined Texas State as the chair of the department of marketing and later served as presidential fellow and associate vice president for academic affairs (AVPAA), with oversight for all curriculum, distance learning, and international affairs at the university. As AVPAA, she chaired the university’s successful NCAA recertification, developed more than 40 new academic programs at all levels, initiated international expansion in Latin America, and grew national recognition and online enrollments by 245 percent between 2011 to 2016.

Before joining Texas State, she taught at Mississippi State University and the University of Tampa, where she lead the Center for Ethics toward a $1M endowment, significant impact on ethical programs in a variety of industries, and publication of her first book, Integrity Management: A Guide to Managing Legal and Ethical Issues in the Workplace. Reflecting deep roots as a scholar-teacher, she has earned tenure and promotion at institutions with three different Carnegie classifications – public R1 (Mississippi State), public R2 (Texas State), and private master’s-large (University of Tampa).

Dr. Thorne received her Ph.D. in business administration from The University of Memphis, M.S. in marketing from Texas A & M University, and B.B.A from Abilene Christian University. She has published many articles in academic journals and is a co-author of multiple books, including Business & Society: A Strategic Approach to Social Responsibility (8th edition; SAGE). She is the recipient of teaching awards from universities and professional associations, including the Marketing Management Association, Society for Marketing Advances, The University of Tampa, and University of Memphis. She has also received research awards from Texas State University, The University of Tampa, the American Association of University Administrators, the American Marketing Association, and Society for Marketing Advances.

Her leadership has been recognized by executive positions in professional associations, including past president of the Society for Marketing Advances and Texas Women in Higher Education. She has been an invited scholar to universities in Austria, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, and Thailand. Before entering academe, Dr. Thorne was in product development with Texas Instruments (TI) and part of the engineering, marketing, supply chain, and finance team that launched TI's first product in the laser printer market. She enjoys international travel, collegiate athletics, and traversing dining and shopping districts with family and friends.

Google Scholar Profile https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LUMqZwgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Research Interests

Business and society
Ethical leadership
Marketing ethics