Management (PhD / MPhil) - 2013/2014 entry

This PhD/MPhil programme aims to train you to conduct research of a high academic standard and to make an original contribution to the subject through your thesis. It involves taught coursework and research training, and will not only prepare you to undertake research for your own dissertation, but will also equip you to be able to evaluate research results and reports more widely.

Current subject specialisms include: human resource management; accounting; marketing; strategic management; industrial economics and strategy; corporate finance; innovation and technology management; e-commerce; the business and regulation of football; corporate governance; environmental management; knowledge and learning management; international business; and sport business management.

As a research student, you will follow an intensive research training programme during your first year of full-time study (first two years of part-time study). You will have the opportunity to present research papers in the research student seminars series.

As a research student, you will be invited to attend research student seminars. These are held four or five times each term at Birkbeck in the evenings.

Unless you already hold a Master's degree approved by the Economic and Social Research Council for research training purposes, you will need to follow an intensive research training programme during your first year (full-time) or two years (part-time), organised in collaboration with other Birkbeck and University of London departments which offer research degrees in the field of management.

Our students choose to pursue research with us for a number of reasons, among them the following:

• the department engages in significant collaborative research and has excellent contacts with many public and private sector organisations, professional bodies and researchers at other academic institutions
• staff in the department have considerable strengths in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies which have been used in a wide variety of organisational settings – actively engaged in their own research, they understand how important your research is to you, and aim to provide expert supervision and support to students pursuing research degrees
• we are recognised by the Economic and Social Research Council for PhD studentships. Such recognition is only given to those institutions which the ESRC regards as providing adequate levels of research support and training in a research-active environment.

If you are considering applying for MPhil/PhD research, you are advised to contact the department about your research plan before making an application.

• Dr Chahrazad Abdallah, MSc, PhD: Management studies; issues in organisational theory and behaviour; strategic management.
• Dr Basil Al-Najjar, BSc, MSc, PhD, FHEA: Corporate finance; capital structure; dividend policy; cash holdings; corporate governance; ownership structure; SMEs financing and governance; and financial reporting.
• Dr Birgitte Andersen, BA, MSc, MA, PhD: Technical change and corporate innovation; e-commerce and e-business.
• Professor Daniele Archibugi, BA, DPhil: Globalisation; technological change; global governance; cosmopolitan democracy; public services.
• Dr Ioanna Boulouta: Corporate responsibility and social performance at multiple levels; building national competitiveness through responsible business strategies; the ethics of care and empathy in shaping corporate responsibility strategy; gender diversity and stereotypes on corporate boards.
• Dr Marion Frenz, Dipl-Kffr, MSc, PhD: Innovation, globalisation and economic growth.
• Dr Libon Fung, BSc, MSc, PhD, ACAL: Asset markets; accounting information and financial management.
• Dr Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick, BA, MA, PhD: International and European employment relations; international trade unionism and globalisation; equal opportunities and diversity management; public sector employment relations; employee participation and economic and industrial democracy.
• Dr Qian Guo BSc, MSc, PhD: inflation targeting, CAPM, and stochastic differential equations.
• Dr Frederick Guy, BSc, PhD: Labour economics and political economy; effects of technological change on income distribution; executive pay; determinants of investment in skills; deregulation, neo-liberalism, globalisation, and inequality. Inter-firm relations - clusters, specialisation, knowledge spillovers. Co-operatives - consumer or employee ownership.
• Mr Sean Hamil, BA, MSc: Corporate environmental (ecological) management, with specific reference to disputes with pressure groups; corporate community involvement.
• Dr Wendy Hein, BA, PhD: Consumer behaviour and consumer culture; gender, identities and consumption practices; ethnography and interpretive research.
• Dr Odile Janne, MA, PhD: Multinational enterprises, innovation and economic development.
• Professor John Kelly, BSc, PhD: Industrial relations; trade unions and human resource management.
• Dr Suzanne Konzelmann, BA, MA, PhD: Productive system; corporate governance; restructuring and policy; industry and labour relations.
• Professor Helen Lawton Smith, BSc, DPhil: Innovation; entrepreneurship; scientific labour markets; universities and economic development; national and European policies.
• Dr Kannika Leelapanyalert, LLB, PostDip, MSc, PhD: International marketing; retail marketing and international retailing; internationalisation process of Western retailers investing in emerging markets; the role of market orientation in international entry process; the role of network and matching concept plays during international expansion to Asia; qualitative research.
• Professor Xiaming Liu, PhD: Foreign direct investment; multinational corporations; technology transfer and spillover; internationalisation and economic growth.
• Professor Klaus Nielsen, BA, MSc: Institutional economics; economic and industrial policy; social capital; corporate innovation and competitiveness.
• Dr Federica Rossi, BSc, MSc, PhD, PgCert: economics and management of intellectual property; economics and governance of higher education; innovation activities of firms and networks of firms; technology transfer; science, technology and innovation policy.
• Dr Julian Sims BA, PhD, CertEd: Emergent decision making, social networking and communities of practice, financial management, the digital divide and social exclusion.
• Dr Paz Estrella Tolentino, BSc, MA, PhD: Theory and history of international production and the multinational enterprise; national and international policies.
• Dr Linda Trenberth, BEd, MA, PhD: HRM and performance; work stress; coping and well-being; sport and football management; women and management.
• Dr Peter Trim, BSc, MSc, MBA, MEd, PhD, MIMgt, FRSA: Strategic marketing; management in education; corporate intelligence and national security.
• Dr Geoff Walters, BSc, MA, PhD: Corporate governance in sport; the management of multiple stakeholder relationships; corporate social responsibility in sport.

Examples of recent research topics:

• The management of military technology transfer to the UAE
• Family firm governance
• Corporate and non-profit organisational governance
• The impact of new media/technology on cultural institutions: a comparative study of dance companies and museums
• Collaborative behaviour of professional workers
• Politics of investing during the 1997 East Asian financial crisis
• The analysis of restructuring and performance of diversified business groups in South Korea
• Co-evolution of IPRs regime and techological development in developing countries under the TRIPS agreement.

You can apply at any time during the year.