Ellen Touchstone PhD

Associate Dean, Responsible and Sustainable Business Education

Dr Ellen E Touchstone is the inaugural Associate Dean for Responsible and Sustainable Business Education at the International Business School Suzhou @ XJTLU. She received her MBA in International Business from ASU Thunderbird School of Global Management and her PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Southern California. She is a thought leader on inclusive banking with her research on the linguistic servicescape and multilingual advertising published in the Journal of Business Research and the Journal of Consumer Research respectively. The carbon reduction initiative she launched with the Sustainable Future Talents student group, "Fifteen Ways in Fifteen Weeks" won the AMBA BGA Best CSR & Sustainability Initiative 2022. In March 2022, she was named a “China Super Woman” by Shanghai-based Green Initiatives for her work on environmental and gender equity initiatives in the Yangtze River Delta













  • PhD , University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA USA - 1996
  • MBA , Thunderbird School of Global Management, Glendale, AZ USA - 1992
  • BA , University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE USA - 1986


  • Inaugural Associate Dean, Responsible and Sustainable Business Education, IBSS - 2020 - present
  • Director of Internationalisation, IBSS - 2018-2020
  • Programme Director, International Business with a Language, IBSS - 2018-2021
  • Senior Associate Professor of Practice in Marketing, IBSS - 2016 - present
  • Academic Director, CRRC International Talent Programme - 2016-2018
  • Module Convenor, Postgraduate and Staff English, School of Languages, XJTLU - 2012-2015
  • Certified French and Speech Communications Teacher, Secondary Education - Richardson Independent School District, Texas - 2003-2012
  • Interim Assistant Marketing Director, LingualCare - a 3M Company - 2006 to 2007
  • Product Strategy Manager, PeopleSoft Corporation - 2000 to 2001
  • Adjunct Faculty, Marketing - California State University, Long Beach - 1995 - 1999
  • Visiting Assistant Professor, Marketing - Whittier College - 1997-1998
  • Director, Workplace Languages Programme - University of Southern California, American Language Institute - 1993 - 1994
  • Senior Lecturer, English for Specific Purposes - University of Southern California, American Language Institute - 1990-1995


  • Inclusive financing
  • Sustainability
  • Diversity Equity and Inclusion
  • linguistic servicescape
  • multilingual services marketing
  • multilingual advertising


  • Touchstone, Ellen E., Scott Koslow, Prem N. Shamdasani, Steven D'Alessandro 2017, 'The linguistic servicescape: Speaking their language may not be enough,' Journal of Business Research, 72 (March), pp. 147-157
  • Touchstone, Ellen E. and Amanda Hilmarsson-Dunn 2015 ' China English: intelligibility of non-native writer (NNW) English texts versus native writer (NW) English texts, a case study in intercultural communication, English Teaching in China (ETiC) Journal, 6, pp. 21-26
  • Touchstone, Ellen E., Robert B. Kaplan, and Cynthia L. Hagstrom 1996 'Home sweet casa -- access to home loans in Los Angeles: a critique of English and Spanish home loan brochures, Multilingua, 15 (3) 329-349
  • Touchstone, Ellen & Youmans, Madeleine 1995 'The creation of an underclass: A critical analysis of California teacher education programs with an emphasis on deaf teacher education', Teacher Education Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 1, p. 113-128
  • Kaplan, Robert, Touchstone, Ellen & Hagstrom, Cynthia 1995 'Image and reality: Banking in Los Angeles', Text, vol. 15, no. 4, p. 427-456
  • Koslow, Scott., Shamdasani, Prem & Touchstone, Ellen 1994 'Exploring language effects in ethnic advertising: A sociolinguistic perspective', Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 20, no. March, p. 575-585


  • Touchstone, Ellen, Homer, Pamela & Koslow, Scott 1999, 'Spanish language billboard advertising in the US: are there effects on Anglos?' in Writing Business: Genres, Media and Discourses (eds) Writing Business: Genres, Media and Discourse, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, pp. 257-272


  • 2021, RME 8 Responsible Management Education Research Conference, Suzhou, China, October / Student-led sustainability initiatives: A case study of '15 Ways in 15 Weeks' at IBSS @XJTLU and the Sustainable Future Talents (with Yanfei LI and Haina SANG)
  • 2021, RME 8 Responsible Management Education Research Conference, Suzhou, China, October / Working on sustainability across the curriculum and across borders: The case study of Climathon @XJTLU and the Y-Project's entry in the Solar Decathlon China 2021' (with Marco Cimillo and Paola Pellegrini)
  • 2021, RME 8 Responsible Management Education Research Conference, Suzhou, China, October / Working with the community for sustainable tourism development: The case study of an interdisciplinary Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship project to investigate the feasibility of retrofitting a villa in Tongli to become a sustainable B & B (with Zinan YUE)
  • 2015-2016, ICLHE 2015, Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education: At the Crossroads Between Innovation and Practice / Implementing content and language integrated learning (CLIL) in higher education: Stakeholders persepctives at a Sino-British university
  • 2015-2016, The 8th International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) / English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in China: A case study of language usage, attitudes and policy at a Sino-British university
  • 2014-2015, CAES International Conference, Faces of English – Theory, Practice and Pedagogy / China English: issues of intelligibility in transnational education
  • 2014-2015, The 7th International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) / China English: issues of attitudes and intelligibility in transnational education
  • 2013-2014, International Association for Applied Linguistics (AILA) World Congress 2014 / Standard English or 'China English' teaching in China: perceptions of students and teachers at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University" as part of a panel discussion: "Second language learning and academic performance in English and Chinese at a Sino-British
  • 1994-1995, American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Long Beach, March 1995 / Unplanned Language Planning
  • 1993-1994, American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Baltimore, March 1994 / Language Planning in a Los Angeles Bank
  • 1990-1991, Literacy Roundtable Los Angeles, May 1991 / A Critical Analysis of Deaf Teacher Education Programs in California
  • 1990-1991, Second Language Research Forum (SLRF) Los Angeles, March 1991 / Speech Accommodation Theory
  • 1989-1990, International Association for Applied Linguistics (AILA) , April 1999 / Advertising to US Hispanics


  • Hilmarsson-Dunn, Amanda & Touchstone, Ellen 2014, , Teaching Development Fund, 0.0000,


  • MAN105 Introduction to Organisation and Management
  • MAN207 Retail Marketing
  • MAN303 Final Year Project
  • MAN315 Relationship Marketing
  • MAN319 Critical Issues in Marketing
  • MAN322 Marketing Strategy
  • MAN418 International Marketing


  • 2022 China Super Woman, Green Initiatives NGO (March)
  • 2022 AMBA - BGA Best CSR & Sustainability Initiative
  • 2020 BA International Business with a Language selected as a Top Tier Programme by the Chinese Ministry of Education (Programme Director)
  • 2019 BA International Business with a Language selected as a Top Tier Programme by the Jiangsu Ministry of Education (Programme Director)
  • 2017 Dean's Award for Outstanding Teaching
Ellen Touchstone