PhD in Sustainability and Management

Abstract

The Business-Society Management department at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, is seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate looking to study a topic in the area of sustainability and management. For this position, you will be able to freely choose your own research topic, within our department’s area of expertise. Potential research topics broadly cover the challenges that society and our natural environment face and then consider how organisations can address these challenges. Specific topics include (but are not limited to): systems and resilience thinking, sustainability issues in multinational enterprises and global value chains, corporate communication, sense-making processes, social innovation, business ethics, philanthropy, alternative organisational and governance forms such as social enterprises, commons and cooperatives, corporate social (ir)responsibility, (organisational) stigma, stakeholder management, and aligning corporate value propositions with societal issues.

Overall, we are looking for a candidate who is eager to learn to research how organisations and businesses can be key drivers of social change, and we welcome applications from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Strong applicants typically have backgrounds in business or economics and are looking to pursue an academic career. Creativity, self-direction, and a passion for scientific research are therefore essential qualities.

Keywords

Grand Challenges, Sustainability, Sustainable Management, Systems Thinking, International Business, Social Evaluations, Social Innovation, Partnerships, Philanthropy, Sensemaking, Social Enterprises, Stigma, Stakeholders, Commons and Cooperatives, Social Movements

Topic

Our PhD program seeks to train the next generation of academics in the area of sustainability and management. We want our PhD candidates to become scholars who address societally relevant questions with original research that meets the highest methodological standards. During their five years of study, PhD students define and execute their own research projects. They do this with the support of their supervisory team, but also work with other faculty, including those at other departments and other universities. Through courses, research seminars, applied and theoretical research with faculty, and coaching from the supervisory team, our PhD students gain the requisite experience to do high-quality research independently. We expect our PhD students to become experts in and define a research agenda around a topic of their choosing.

The new PhD student will be part of the Business-Society department. Our department is unique in its focus on sustainability and management, diverse, and highly collegial. We focus on the challenges that society and our natural environment face and then consider how organisations, from small local start-ups, NGOs and social enterprises to large multinational enterprises, can address these challenges. In other words, we interrogate how organisations impact society and the natural environment, and how they can take responsibility in the contexts they operate in. This is an important research agenda because our social and natural environments are changing in drastic and unprecedented ways – examples of which include climate change, growing (social) inequality, and the global displacement of populations – and organisations can play a central role in both causing and solving these grand challenges. Furthermore, traditional business models are starting to alienate parts of the general public by losing track of their interests and concerns. Overall, these issues are complex, because society changes in ways that are difficult to foresee for companies and other organisational actors alike, and thus warrant deep scholarly inquiry.

For the open PhD position, you will choose your own research topic within our department’s area of expertise: businesses acting upon unprecedented social and environmental changes. A common theme underlying this research is that it seriously considers the possibility that the way organisations engage in business – including how they relate to the context in which they operate – needs to be changed fundamentally and that incremental efforts are unlikely to be of sufficient help. Potential research topics include (but are not limited to) addressing sustainability issues in multinational enterprises and global value chains, systems and resilience thinking, corporate communication, sensemaking processes, social innovation, business ethics, philanthropy, alternative organisational and governance forms such as social enterprises, commons and cooperatives, corporate social (ir)responsibility, (organisational) stigma, stakeholder management, and aligning corporate value propositions with societal issues.

Our department’s faculty consists of world-class, multi-disciplinary scholars who publish in top journals, develop pragmatic solutions for organisations, and educate future generations of business leaders. Your supervisory team will be formed of a promoter and co-promoter according to topic selected. The department’s faculty who currently advise on PhD research are (in alphabetical order): Thomas Bauwens, Flore Bridoux, Joep Cornelissen, Martin de Jong, Tine De Moor, Corinna Frey-Heger, Tony Jaehyun Choi, Jan Lodge, Emilio Marti, Lucas Meijs, Steve Kennedy, Ferran Torres Nadal, Khadija van der Straaten, and Marius van Dijke.

Our faculty publishes in top journals such as Academy of Management Annals, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Research Policy. Faculty members teach at Bachelor, Master, and MBA-levels. In their teaching, the department members link state-of-the-art theory and research on sustainability, business-society management, business ethics, and general management with business practice, using innovative teaching methods. The department also has a strong tradition in organizing and participating in research seminars and workshops with both internal and external speakers. We also invest in bringing our knowledge back to society through intensive cooperation with societal partners and transdisciplinary research.

Approach

There are many methods that you can use for theory development and/or theory testing depending on your phenomenon of interest, intended theoretical contribution, and the methodological skills you wish to develop. Our faculty form a multidisciplinary team, and have broad experience with multiple research methodologies, both empirical quantitative research (surveys, laboratory experiments, field experiments) and qualitative research (e.g., case studies, ethnographies, longitudinal research).

Required profile

Candidates applying for a Ph.D. position within this research theme should have (or be close to completing) a master’s degree in business studies, management studies, sociology, economics, psychology, or a related discipline. In terms of methodological skills, candidates preferably have experience and interest in statistical, experimental and/or interview skills, and should be eager to learn new methodological tools.

We are looking for candidates who are passionate about research on how organisations can be key drivers of sustainable development, and we welcome applications from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Candidates should have a clear sense of the specific topic they want to study, and what method(s) they wish to apply. Your preferred topic, method(s) and supervisory team should be included in the cover letter.

Students define and execute their own research projects with the support of their supervisory team. Creativity, self-direction, and a passion for scientific research are therefore essential qualities.

Expected output

You will produce research that can be published in top-tier peer reviewed journals in sustainability, management, organisation, strategy, or applied psychology. These star journals are listed on the ERIM´s webpage: https://www.erim.eur.nl/about-erim/erim-journals-list-ejl/ . Your work will also be published as a PhD dissertation.

Cooperation

To strengthen your international research network and complement your time at RSM, you will receive funding for a 3- to 6-month research visit at a top international university. We have strong connections with academics studying sustainability at many other universities such as at the University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, London Business School, HEC Paris, and Imperial College London. Members of the group are also well connected with executives in sustainable and innovative organisations.

Societal relevance

It is becoming increasingly clear that business and management scholarship need to engage much more with questions that go beyond efficiency considerations, performance and profit-maximisation. In your project, you will use management thinking to help address society’s grand challenges by questioning taken-for-granted assumptions and researching alternative and innovative forms of organising. Our business school is dedicated to making research useful for and valued by society and invests in training our students to do so in a responsible and ethical way.

Scientific relevance

Your research should aim at advancing our understanding of highly important aspects of sustainability for organisations, more specifically how they act upon the unprecedented changes that our society and business face. Thereby, your research will contribute strongly to academic knowledge and literature on this topic.

Literature references & data sources

Please refer to the web pages for more information about our current research interests and latest publications (Business-Society Management - Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (rsm.nl)).

Employment conditions

ERIM offers fully-funded and salaried PhD positions, which means that accepted PhD candidates become employees (promovendi) of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO).

Erasmus University Rotterdam aspires to be an equitable and inclusive community. We nurture an open culture, where everyone is supported to fulfil their full potential. We see inclusivity of talent as the basis of our successes, and the diversity of perspectives and people as a highly valued outcome. EUR provides equal opportunities to all employees and applicants regardless of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, age, neurodiversity, functional impairment, citizenship, or any other aspect which makes them unique. We look forward to welcoming you to our community.

Contact information

For questions regarding the PhD application and selection procedure, please check the Admissions or send us an e-mail via phdadmissions@erim.eur.nl.