Dr Eva Cools, Research Manager
You’re passionate about a particular area of business. You want to research it further and contribute this knowledge to the world’s academic understanding. Maybe you want to become an academic too. So you start your doctoral journey.
But what should Executive PhD students expect? And how will you know when you’re on track?
You are a business specialist – and you’ve been working at pace your entire life. In year one of your Executive PhD, you’re going to need to shift gears a little.
This is a time to take a step back and learn the principles that underpin academic research. Through a number of courses, you’ll discover the role of theory. You’ll learn how to design a reliable, valid study – and explore when and why to opt for qualitative or quantitative methods. You’ll become familiar with existing models. Then you’ll apply these insights to your initial research idea to make it more tangible.
Remember, this first year is about learning academic approaches. It’s about awakening your academic mindset – and going broad before you go narrow and deep. This means that you may feel you’re not moving as fast as you thought you might.
Your research from year one may not make it into your dissertation. Your literature search may not result in a comprehensive literature review. This is to be expected.
Your relationship with knowledge will change throughout this year. So keep in touch with your peers and supervisors – and involve them with your journey.
Now it’s time to dig deeper and translate your learnings from year one into doctoral assignments. Instead of attending courses, you’ll be setting your own pace and staying organised.
First, you’ll write up a literature review. This helps you to position your research within the existing knowledge base. You start from the papers you submitted in year one and continue your literature search in a structured way. You’ll need to walk a fine line between remaining focused – and pushing yourself to go broad enough to understand context.
Your supervisors will be there to help you stay on track, identify the right sources, choose the right keywords and to make sense of all the input. Then they’ll help you to write your review in your own academic style.
You’ll also conduct a pilot study that will help you to assess feasibility. Bear in mind that your pilot is not about testing your hypothesis or research questions. It’s more about implementing methodologies so that your ultimate research is robust.
Finally, you integrate all your insights into a focused proposal and work plan for your doctoral research. To do this, you’ll start to engage more in the academic community and present your work in a research seminar or amongst your peers.
By the end of year two, you’ll have far greater trust in your academic skills. The pieces of the puzzle are coming together and you experience the buzz of putting your initial learnings into practice.
Once your research proposal has been accepted, you continue to implement the studies you started in year two. Some people like to work on different studies in parallel, while others prefer – or need – to do one thing at a time.
Over these two years, you work on the first and second paper of your doctoral research. You develop the studies conceptually, collect and analyse the data, and write up the initial papers.
You’ll continue to be more actively engaged in the academic community – and you’ll present one of your studies at an academic conference. And as you start becoming an expert in your field, you can act as a friendly reviewer for peers working in the same domain.
Your doctoral guidance committee will assess your progress. They’ll also serve as a sounding board in the doctoral seminars where you present your first two studies. Based on this feedback, you may be able to submit a paper to an academic journal.
The end is in sight by now – and your academic skills are finely honed. As you set up your third doctoral study, it feels like you’re speed reading as you dig into the literature. You’ve learned from past experiences and your study design is robust. You’re confidently taking part in conference and research seminar presentations – and your work may be appearing in academic journals.
In your final year, you update your literature review and start to write your doctoral thesis. You’ll create an introductory chapter that ties together the themes of your three papers – and you’ll draw everything together in a concluding chapter.
Once your doctoral guidance committee allows you to do so, you defend your PhD in front of an international jury.
Gaining the title of PhD means that you earn a “licence to research” – and that you’re considered to be an independent management scholar.
When you start this journey, you’re a professional who’s learning to be an academic. At this stage, you are an academic who can feed research and insights back into the professional domain.
If you have specific goals and passions, a doctoral journey could open up whole new worlds of possibilities for you.
This is a flexible programme, which allows you to define your own path – so be organised, make time and remember your goals throughout. Five years may seem a long time – but it really will fly by.
There will be support, advice and community around you throughout this journey – so take the leap, trust the process and discover how your specialist passion can improve the business world and society.
Customer Relations Executive PhD Programme