PhD Studentship in Management

Notice of the Call for PhD Studentship

CUBE-BD/1

CUBE – Católica Lisbon Research Unit in Business and Economics da Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics, Universidade Católica Portuguesa opens a call for the granting of 1 (one) PhD studentship, in the scientific field of Management, complying with the provisions of the FCT Regulation for Studentships and Fellowships (RBI) and the Research Fellowship Holder Statute (EBI).

The studentship will be funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) in the scope of Collaboration Protocol for Financing the Multiannual Research Studentship Plan for Doctoral Students, concluded between FCT and the research unit Católica Lisbon Research Unit in Business and Economics (CUBE), with the reference UIDP/00407/2020.

1. APPLICATION

The call is open from July 19th to 5:00 pm (Lisbon time) July 30th 2021.

Applications, and all the supporting documents described in the RBI and in this Notice of the Call, must be submitted by e-mail to [email protected] with the following subject: CUBE-BD/1 - #applicant name#.

Each applicant may submit one application only, under penalty of cancellation of all applications submitted.

Providing false declarations or committing acts of plagiarism by applicants leads to the exclusion of the application without prejudice of taking other corrective and punitive disciplinary measures.

2. TYPE AND DURATION OF STUDENTSHIP

The research activities leading to the attainment of a PhD degree will be carried out at CUBE, which will be the hosting institution of the studentship holder, without prejudice to the research activities being able to be carried out in collaboration with more than one institution.

The research activities leading to the attainment of a PhD degree must be framed in CUBE’s activity plan and strategy.

The work plan may be developed entirely or partially in a national institution (studentship in the Portugal) or both in Portugal and abroad (mixed fellowship).

As a rule, the duration of PhD studentship is annual, renewable up to the maximum number of four years (48 months) and cannot be granted for a period less than 3 consecutive months.

In case of a studentship carried out both in Portugal and abroad, the work plan period in a foreign institution cannot exceed 24 months.

RECIPIENTS

The PhD studentship is aimed at applicants enrolled or that comply with the requirements to enrol for a PhD program in Management or related scientific fields and who wish to carry out research towards this degree at CUBE or host institutions associated with this research unit.

ADMISSIBILITY

Applicants’ admissibility requirements

The following citizens may apply to this call:

• National citizens or citizens from other member-states of the European Union;
• Third-party states citizens;
• Stateless individuals;
• Citizens holding a political refugee status..

Para concorrer a Bolsa de Investigação para Doutoramento é necessário:

• To hold a Bachelor or Master’s degree in Management, Economics, Mathematics or Engineering;
• To be a citizen permanently and usually living in Portugal, in case the work plan of the requested studentship proceeds, entirely or partially, in foreign institutions (in case of both in Portugal and abroad or exclusively abroad studentships); this requirement is applicable to both national and foreign citizens;
• Not to have benefited from a PhD or a PhD in industry studentship directly funded by FCT, regardless of its duration;
• Not to hold a doctoral degree.

Application’s admissibility requirements

It is mandatory, under penalty of non-admissibility:

• Elements of identity card/citizen card/passport;
• Applicant’s Curriculum vitae;
• Certificates of qualification of the academic degrees held, specifying the final classification and, if possible, the classifications obtained in all subjects taken, or alternatively, the candidate’s declaration of honour that he/she completed the bachelor’s or master’s degree by the end of the application deadline;
• Record of recognition of academic degrees awarded by foreigner higher education institutions and record of the conversion of the respective final classification to the Portuguese classification scale, or, alternatively, a declaration of honour by the applicant that he/she obtained recognition of a foreign degree equivalent to that of a Bachelor or Master by the end of the application deadline;
• Motivation letter, explaining the interest in developing a PhD program in the frame of research goals described in number 5;
• Recommendation Letters (2);
• To present and submit the application and all related documents, including the motivation and recommendation letters, in Portuguese or in English.

Regarding the aforementioned admissibility requirements, the following should be noted:

• In the case of academic degrees awarded by foreign higher education institutions, and in order to ensure the application of the principle of equal treatment to applicants holding foreign and national academic degrees, it is mandatory to recognize these degrees and convert the respective final classification to the Portuguese rating scale.
• Recognition of foreign academic degrees and diplomas, as well as the conversion of the final classification to the Portuguese classification scale, can be requested at any public higher education institution, or at the Directorate-General for Higher Education (DGES, only in the case of automatic recognition). Regarding this matter, it is suggested to consult the DGES portal at the following address: http://www.dges.gov.pt .
• Only applicants who have completed the cycle of studies leading to a Bachelor's or Master's degree by the end of the application period will be admitted. If they do not yet have a certificate of course completion, a declaration of honour from the candidates that they have completed the necessary qualifications for the purposes of the competition will be accepted by the end of the application deadline. The granting of the studentship is always dependent on the presentation of proof of ownership of the academic qualifications necessary for granting the studentship.

5. WORK PLAN AND SCIENTIFIC GUIDANCE OF THE STUDENTSHIP

The increase in data availability, coupled with algorithmic innovation and the continuous improvement in computational power at a lower cost, enables enterprise-wide deployments of algorithms and models powered by Artificial Intelligence and enabled by Big Data processing tools to improve decision-making [brynjolfsson_2016]. There is evidence that firms are increasingly using large, detailed individual-level repositories about their customers, suppliers, competitors, and business partners to improve decision-making capabilities [brynjolfsson_2016, wu_2019]. Early research shows that the deployment of these technologies can positively affect firms’ performance [tambe_2014, mcelheran_2015, muller_2018].

However, the growth in sectors of the economy reliant on consumer personal information has also resulted in increasing misuse and mishandling of personal information by firms. There is increased tension between firms' collection and use of personal data and individual privacy interests [cadwalladr_2018, isaak_2018].

Worldwide, several regulators are hardening the rules on the collection, processing, and data use. After the European General Data Protection Regulation went into effect, countries like Brazil, the United States of America, Thailand, and China also started introducing legislation to increase consumers' data protection and consumers' privacy rights.

The stricter privacy laws may come at the expense of the free flow of personal information that many consider the critical ingredient for innovation in the world of Big Data [goldfarb_2012, campbell_2015].

In this project, we aim to study the effectiveness and effects of privacy regulation and GPR, in both firms and consumers. Specifically, we ask (1) whether and how privacy regulation affects the amount and value of personal data that firms can collect about individuals; (2) whether privacy regulation has implications for the economic value of the collected data; and (3) whether current data protection laws are having unintended consequences on market structure, competition, and entrepreneurship.

The studentship supervisor will be Professor Dr Miguel Godinho de Matos, Associate Professor of Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics in the scientific field Information Systems and Operations.

6. EVALUATION CRITERIA

The assessment takes into account the candidate's merit as well as the following additional criteria.

Applications considered admissible will be scored on a scale from zero to one hundred (0-100) in each of the following criteria:

• Criterion A – Assessment of the Master’s and/or Bachelor’s degree as well as the applicant’s curriculum vitae, with a weight of 40%, considering the following rule for the evaluation of the degree held:
  • Applicants who hold a Bachelor's degree will be scored in this criterion on a scale from zero to eighty (0-80);
  • Applicants who hold a Master's degree will have an assessment increased in this criterion by ten to twenty points (10-20 points), depending on the grade and adequacy of the Master's degree held by the candidate.
• Criterion B – Assessment of the PhD program in which the applicant is enrolled or meets the requirements to be enrolled at, with a weight of 20%;
• Criterion C – Motivation letter , with a weight of 10%;
• Criterion D – Interview, with a weight of 30%.

In order to decide the granting of the PhD studentship, applicants will be ranked according to the weighted average of the score obtained in the four criteria, converted into the following formula:

Final Grade =(0.4 ×A+0.2 ×B+ 0.1 ×C+(0.3×D) 

For tiebreaking purposes, the final ranking list will be based on the scores assigned to each of the evaluation criteria in the following order: criterion A, criterion D, criterion B.

• Applicants with diplomas issued by foreign higher education institutions can apply and will be evaluated with the same criteria as candidates with diplomas issued by Portuguese institutions, provided that they present, in their application, proof of recognition of academic degrees and conversion of classification final for the Portuguese classification scale in accordance with the applicable legislation.
• Applicants with foreign diplomas who do not present proof of conversion of the final classification to the Portuguese classification scale will be evaluated with the minimum classification (0 points) in criterion A.
• In any case, studentship contracts with applicants with diplomas issued by foreign institutions will only be signed upon presentation of proof of recognition of academic degrees and conversion of the final classification, as indicated above.

Applicants whose application is evaluated with a final classification of less than 80 points are not eligible for granting the studentship.

7. EVALUATION

The applicant’s evaluation panel consists of the following elements:

• Effective element: Professor Dr Miguel Godinho de Matos, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics (panel coordinator)
• Effective element: Professor Dr Pedro Raposo, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics
• Effective element: Professor Dr Fernando Machado, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics
• Alternate element: Professor Dr Wilson Bastos, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics
• Alternate element: Professora Dr Laura Wagner, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics

The evaluation panel will analyse applications considering the evaluation criteria disclosed in the Notice of the Call, considering all the appreciation elements.

All panel members, including the coordinator, commit to respect a set of responsibilities essential to the assessment process, such as the duties of impartiality, the declaration of any potential conflict of interest situations and confidentiality. At all times during the evaluation process, confidentiality is fully protected and ensured in order to guarantee the independence of all opinions produced.

Panel members, including the coordinator, cannot be advisors or co-advisors of applicants with applications submitted to the call.

For each application, a final evaluation form will be produced by the panel where the arguments that led to the classifications attributed to each of the evaluation criteria are presented in a clear, coherent and consistent way.

Minutes will be produced from the meetings of the evaluation panel, under the responsibility of all its members.

The minutes and their attachments must include the following information:

• Name and affiliation of all evaluation panel members;
• Identification of all excluded applications and their respective reasons [if applicable];
• Methodology used by the panel for particular cases [if applicable];
• Final Assessment Forms for each candidate;
• Provisional ranking list and ranking of candidates, in descending order of the final ranking, of all applications evaluated by the panel;
• CDI statements from all panel members;
• Possible delegations of vote and powers due to justified absence [if applicable].

8. DISSIMINATION OF RESULTS

The evaluation results will be published on the CATÓLICA-LISBON website https://www.clsbe.lisboa.ucp.pt/research-positions . Applicants will be notified by e-mail once this list is made available.

9. TERMS AND PROCEDURES FOR PRIOR HEARING, CLAIM AND APPEAL

After communicating the provisional list of the results of the evaluation, the candidates have a period of 10 working days to express their opinion during a prior hearing of interested parties, pursuant to articles 121 et seq. of the Code of Administrative Procedure.

The final decision will be rendered after the analysis of the statements presented during a prior hearing of interested parties. A complaint may be filed against the final decision within 15 working days, or, alternatively, an appeal may be filed within 30 working days, both counting from the respective notification. Applicants who choose to submit a complaint must address their statement to the member of the Board of Directors of the FCT with delegated competence. Candidates who choose to present an appeal must address the same to the FCT Board of Directors.

10. STUDENTSHIP GRANT REQUIREMENTS

Research fellowship contracts are signed directly with the FCT.

The following documents are of mandatory submission, upon conditional granting of the studentship for purposes of contracting thereof:

The presentation of these documents may optionally be substituted by the in-person presentation in the funding agency, which will keep all the elements needed for the validation and execution of the contract, including the numbers of personal identification, taxation and social security, as well as the respective dates of expiry

The studentship granting is still dependent on:

• The fulfilment of all the requirements listed in this Notice of the Call;
• The results of scientific evaluation;
• The absence of unjustified non-compliance of the fellowship holder during previous directly or indirectly FCT funded fellowships;
• FCT available budget.

The lack of any of the necessary documents to complete the contracting procedure implies the expiration of the studentship granting and conclusion of the process; applicants have up to 6 months after the disclosure of the provisional granting to present all of the listed documents.

11. FUNDING

The payment of studentship will start after the return, by the candidates, of the duly signed studentship contract, which must occur within a maximum period of 15 working days from the date of receipt.

The grants awarded under this call will be financed by the FCT with funds from the State Budget and, when eligible, with funds from the European Social Fund (ESF), under PORTUGAL2020, the PORTUGAL2020 programme, in particular, under Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (NORTE 2020), Programa Operacional Regional do Centro (Centro 2020) and Programa Operacional Regional do Alentejo (Alentejo 2020), according to the respective requirements.

12. STUDENTSHIP ALLOWANCE

Studentship holders are allocated a monthly maintenance allowance in accordance with the table in Annex I of the RBI.

The studentship may also include additional allowances, according to RBI’s Article no. 18 and the values indicated in its Annex II.

All the studentship holders have a personal accident insurance related to the research activities, which FCT will support.

All studentship holders who are not beneficiaries of any social protection regime can use the right to social security through the voluntary social insurance regime, under the terms of the Contributory Scheme of the Social Security System. FCT will ensure the charges resulting from contributions under the terms and with the limits provided in Article no. 10 of the EBI.

13. PAYMENT OF STUDENTSHIP ALLOWANCE

Payments due to the studentship holder are made by bank transfer to the respective indicated account. The monthly maintenance allowance is paid on the first working day of each month.

Payments for the enrolment or tuition fees are made by the FCT directly to the national institution where the studentship holder is enrolled or enrolled in the PhD.

14. TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF PHD STUDENTSHIP RENEWAL

The renewal of the studentship always depends on applicant’s submission, within 60 working days prior to the renewal start date, of the following documents:

15. INFORMATION AND PUBLICITY OF THE GRANTED FUNDING

All the R&D activities carried out by the grantee, directly or indirectly financed by the studentship, namely, communications, publications and scientific creations, as well as thesis, must include the reference to FCT and European Social Fund (ESF) financing. In particular, these references should mention the following operational programmes Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (NORTE 2020), Programa Operacional Regional do Centro (Centro 2020) and Programa Operacional Regional do Alentejo (Alentejo 2020), or additional funding schemes that might be approved. Insignia of FCT, MCTES, ESF and EU must therefore be included in the documents referring to these actions, according to the graphic rules of each operational programme.

The disclosure of research results funded according to the RBI provisions must comply with the open access guidelines, publications and other research results in accordance with FCT rules.

For all the studentships, in particular in case of European funded actions, namely the ESF, may be performed monitoring and controlling actions by national or European entities according to the applicable legislation. Grantees must therefore collaborate and provide all the required information, including answering to surveys and evaluation studies in this area, even though the studentship might has already ceased.

16. NON-DISCRIMINATION AND EQUAL ACCESS POLICY

FCT promotes a policy of non-discrimination and equal access, thus no applicant may be privileged, benefited, damaged, or deprived of any right or exempted from any duty. This includes ancestry, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, family situation, economic situation, education, origin or social condition, genetic heritage, reduced work capacity, disability, chronic disease, nationality, ethnicity or race, land of origin, language, religion, political or ideological beliefs or trade union affiliation.

17. APPLICABLE LEGISLATION AND REGULATION

The present call is governed by this Notice of the Call, the FCT Regulation of Research Fellowships, approved by the Regulation no. 950/2019, published in the Series II of the DR, of 16th December, by the Research Fellowship Holder Statute, approved by the Law no. 40/2004, of 18th of August, in its current version, and by other applicable national and European legislation.