Taiwan-EUR Scholarship: PhD in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship

ERIM, Netherlands

Updated: over 1 year ago
Deadline: 08 Dec 2022

Abstract

*Please note that this is a Taiwan-EUR Scholarship project. For more information on the scholarship programme, please visit the website of the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Taiwan (www.scholarship.moe.gov.tw/top100 ). Applications must be submitted to MOE and also to ERIM/RSM by 8 December; however, additional documents for ERIM/RSM can be submitted until 16 December. You are strongly encouraged to contact us as soon as possible if you are interested in applying (see Contact Information below).*

To develop world-class academics pursuing high-impact research in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship, we have developed a doctoral programme that combines deep-level understanding in core topics and thorough grounding in methodological design and analytical skills. Joining the PhD programme means joining a Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship group with a highly collaborative and cutting-edge research culture. The group harbours expertise in a broad range of topics: faculty members and PhD candidates work across nearly all relevant areas of the strategic management and entrepreneurship fields.

Collaboration with expert faculty: Throughout the programme, candidates work closely with faculty on joint and supervised research.  Teamwork offers candidates the opportunity to learn diverse research skills and become familiar with a range of debates in the field before selecting the focus of subsequent doctoral work. 

Excellent job opportunities: Alumni of the PhD programme hold academic positions in renowned academic institutes around the world, including Cambridge, Copenhagen Business School, ETH Zurich, HEC Paris, INSEAD, Kellogg, McGill, the University of South Carolina, Renmin University, and WHU. 

More information is on the “PhD in Strategic Management” website: https://www.rsm.nl/research/departments/strategic-management-and-entrepreneurship/phd-in-strategic-management/ .


Keywords

Strategic management, (corporate) entrepreneurship, corporate governance, business model innovation, global strategy, strategy and organization, sustainable strategy


Topic

Strategic Managementand Entrepreneurship focuses on understanding why some firms perform better than others, how firms behave, and what determines success in international competition. Given its broad scope, the field is highly integrative and multi-disciplinary, and feeds on insights from a wide range of disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, law, finance, and economics. The field focuses on actions associated with changing the firm's scope and profile of business lines, including vertical integration, mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, corporate diversification strategy/organization, implementation, and performance. The field also addresses questions of how decision-makers can best leverage knowledge and innovation in order to foster competitive advantage for their firms as well as how cultural, social, political, economic, technological, and environmental forces influence firms, entrepreneurs, and corporate strategies in a global context and in societies that expect firms to deploy more socially and environmentally sustainable strategies. Other topics include entrepreneurial behavior in new ventures, scale-ups, and established organizations. Moreover, the field focuses on how strategic leadership and governance shape firms, firm behavior, and outcomes. 

Current themes that have the focus of our faculty and PhD candidates

  • Strategy, Organization, and Governance. A combination of economic, political, and social forces gives rise to a wide range of organizational forms. Research in strategy, organization, and governance aims to explain and identify the mechanisms through which modern firms shape and align their organizational structures, governance and ownership with the strategies, resource dependencies, and business models through which they create and capture value. Research in our group is highly versatile, including projects investigating the re-emergence of craft organizations and state capitalism on the world stage, the competitive advantage and strategic resilience of business groups, owner-managed firms, family firms, and professional partnerships, and how active owners shape the strategies and the organizational and governance structures of listed firms across different national contexts. Our research often takes up a comparative perspective, involving both comparisons between different institutional contexts and comparisons between different organizational forms.
  • Strategic Entrepreneurship. In today’s fast-paced environments, wealth creation demands proficiency in identifying and generating new opportunities for growth. At the nexus of entrepreneurship and strategic management, research on strategic entrepreneurship is concerned with understanding how organizations link entrepreneurial behaviour and strategic advantage-seeking actions to create and capture wealth. The work in our group focuses on new venture creation, scaling-up, corporate entrepreneurship, ambidexterity, and new strategy implementation. Exemplary research addresses such aspects as: how organizations strengthen their core business while also developing new businesses; how organizations become more entrepreneurial through the generation of new businesses within established systems and through strategic renewal; how young organizations can ignite rapid growth and scale up successfully by leveraging new technologies, establishing platforms, redefining boundaries, and developing new and scalable business models; and how new practices and technologies enable firms to implement strategies which focus on venturing into new businesses as well as strengthening their core.
  • Strategy, Knowledge, and Innovation. New technologies and new business models reshape the way firms do business. This calls for new insights into how managers and entrepreneurs can best innovate and leverage knowledge to build competitive advantages for their firms. The field of strategy, knowledge, and innovation focuses on how managers and entrepreneurs build and renew the technological, social, and relational capital to shape such innovations. It addresses such issues as strategic renewal, innovation management, management innovation and the rise of new organizational forms, collaborative and open innovation, innovation ecosystems, and corporate venturing. Our group covers a wide range of topics in this area, such as: micro-foundations of absorptive capacity and dynamic capabilities that enable innovation; the origins of business model innovations; the implications of technological disruptions; the mechanisms of effective collaborations to achieve innovation by large incumbent firms and new ventures; and the governance and assessment of the impact of such collaborations.
  • Global Strategy. The competitive landscape of firms is increasingly dynamic, diverse, and global. The field ofglobal strategy aims to enrich our understanding of how internationally operating firms form and implement their strategies, and how firms shape, and are shaped by, their global context. It focuses on foreign-entry strategies in culturally, politically, and economically heterogeneous contexts, and ultimately on the determinants of success or failure in international arenas. Our group typically adopts an institutions-based perspective, which argues that international firms are constrained and enabled by widely diverse, durable rules of the game, as illustrated by the diverse societal expectations around competitive behaviour and sustainability performance. Exemplary research projects in our group include novel views on culture, cross-border knowledge transfer, strategic responses to institutional voids, influences of governments and other stakeholders on corporate environmental practices, cross-country and within-country variance in institutions, and international strategies of the largest companies, born-globals, and emerging-market multinationals.
  • Behavioural Strategy and Entrepreneurial Behaviour. Influential strategic and entrepreneurial decisions result from extraordinary human effort. Behavioural strategy and entrepreneurial behaviour inform us about the psychology behind these high-impact and complex decisions. It takes a micro-level perspective to understanding how managers and entrepreneurs create and sustain value for their organizations and stakeholders, enriching strategy and entrepreneurship theory through forefront research on human cognition, emotions, and social and innovative behaviour of entrepreneurs, executives, and their teams. Seminal research in the field comprises the behavioural theory of the firm and the upper echelons perspective, as well as pivotal work from cognitive and social psychology. Exemplary group projects explore: how top managers, boards, and shareholders embrace uncertainty; how gender affects entrepreneurial behaviour; how disinhibition (ADHD) fuels entrepreneurial orientation; how CEO personality drives firm decisions, behaviour, and outcomes; how emotion influences idea generation and exploitation; and how biases and heuristics impact strategic decisions.

    • Approach

    Programme Overview

    During the first 18 months, PhD candidates follow an intensive trajectory of courses to build the theoretical knowledge and develop methodological skills needed to become successful researchers. Through a series of content-oriented courses, PhD candidates examine foundational works, current debates, forward-looking insights, and common and novel methods to study core topics in the field, such as strategic organization, strategic decision-making, strategy implementation, strategy and innovation, corporate governance, start-ups and scale-ups, global strategy, and sustainable strategies. Methods courses include quantitative techniques, qualitative methods, as well as critical analytical techniques. In addition to coursework, candidates work on research papers coached by faculty members. Progress of candidates is assessed through coursework, research papers, and appraisal presentation. PhD candidates will also join ongoing research projects to acquire hands-on experience.

    After 10 months of coursework and socialization, candidates choose a supervising team among the SME faculty. Within 12 months, candidates submit their research proposal in collaboration with their supervising team. The research proposal describes research question(s), intended contributions, positioning in the field, and methodological approach of the research they will carry out during the remainder of the trajectory. This second stage will build on the research proposal with a focus on implementing and writing up the various studies that together make up the dissertation.

    The complete PhD programme in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship typically takes five years.


    Required profile

    Given the multi-disciplinary nature of studying strategic management and entrepreneurship topics, PhD candidates typically have diverse backgrounds. The group welcomes applications from excellent candidates from diverse disciplinary and national backgrounds who share a passion for academic research on strategy-relevant topics and who have strong academic credentials. The ideal candidate for the PhD programme in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship has a strong research orientation, including good analytical skills and a demonstrated competence in the use of diverse empirical techniques, as evidenced by an MSc thesis or other research papers (co)authored by the candidate.

    *Required by ERIM/RSM

    The required entrance level is a Master's degree (MSc, MA, or MPhil) equivalent to a Dutch scientific university education Master's degree.

    Below are the test scores required by ERIM/RSM:

    - GMAT/GRE scores above the 85th percentile, not older than 5 years. Please note that GMAT/GRE cannot be waived under any circumstances.

    - IELTS/TOEFL test scores, not older than 2 years (may be waived for candidates whose native language is English, or whose entire university education [Bachelor's and Master's] was taught in English):

      IELTS: minimum overall band score 7.5; no band score lower than 6.5

      Internet-based TOEFL: minimum total score 100, no sub-score lower than 23

      Paper-based TOEFL: minimum score 600

    *Required by Ministry of Education (MOE, Taiwan)

    Candidates also need to submit an application to the MOE and meet the requirements set by them. Please consult the following website for more information: www.scholarship.moe.gov.tw/top100


    Expected output

    In the Strategy and Entrepreneurship group, a Ph.D. thesis will typically consist of a number of high quality papers that have either been published or that aim for publication in the field’s leading journals. The Strategy and Entrepreneurship group has a strong focus on publications in the field’s top journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal.


    Cooperation

    PhD research within the Strategy and Entrepreneurship group at the Rotterdam School of Management will typically take place in teams of which the composition is contingent on the focus of the individual research projects that together make up a PhD thesis. In addition, researchers in the Strategy and Entrepreneurship group collaborate with renowned scholars from leading business schools around the world. In order to secure placements of PhD graduates at top business schools around the world, the Strategy and Entrepreneurship group encourages PhD candidates to build an international network through collaborative projects with, and research visits to, leading scholars in the field.


    Societal relevance

    The Strategy and Entrepreneurship group has a strong ambition to develop and carry out research that matters to managers, practitioners, firms, and (global) society at large. The group actively encourages valorization of research findings through various research-related outreach activities, including publications and seminars for practitioners, executive education, media interventions, and the development of cases and other teaching materials that translate academic knowledge into actionable insights.


    Scientific relevance

    The Strategy and Entrepreneurship group aims to contribute to ongoing research streams in the fields of strategic management and entrepreneurship as well as to pioneer and define new research areas in these fields.


    Contact Information

    If you are interested in applying to this Taiwan-EUR scholarship project, please contact Dr Phoebe Mui . For more information on the scholarship programme, please consult the website of the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Taiwan .


    Erasmus Research Institute of Management

    ERIM is the research institute of management at Erasmus University Rotterdam, founded by Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) and Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), both of which excel in their research and teaching programmes. The level and international character of their research and teaching programmes has put both schools at the forefront of academic excellence. They offer a diversified portfolio of accredited teaching and research programmes, ranging from pre-experience MSc to postgraduate Masters and executive development, and from fundamental research to applied research and business support, which are renowned throughout the world. RSM is one of the few schools worldwide that holds a triple accreditation from the AMBAs, EQUIS and the AASCB, and is positioned among the top European business schools. The scientific staff of both schools plays a major role in the schools’ interaction with the international business community.

    ERIM distinguishes itself by the high-level and international character of its research and has repeatedly been ranked among top 3 research institutes in Europe. ERIM’s key aims are top-quality academic research with impact both on academia and managerial practice, and the advancement of international academic careers and high-level support for both research and doctoral education. For more information about ERIM please visit [link:https://www.erim.eur.nl].


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