“The best job in the world.”
This is how faculty members at INSEAD and other business schools describe their work.
If you have an excellent undergraduate record in any discipline, strong quantitative skills, an enquiring and creative mind, and a fascination with business, the INSEAD PhD in Management could open the door to this amazing international career.
Most attractive of all is the variety of the work: the fascination of discovery; the thrill of orchestrating bright minds in the classroom; the creative stimulation of top international conferences and visits to other institutions; the dynamic synergies between research and teaching.
Then there’s the freedom and flexibility. Of course, there’s hard work and high pressure too. But when you’re pursuing your own interests and passion, the effort is worthwhile. So are the rewards. Academic salaries compare favourably with industry and the top professions.
Specialising in management brings added benefits. It means your research and teaching are rooted in the real world, so the impact is significant. As well as developing bright degree-level students, business-school professors teach top executives, helping them to expand the frontiers of practice. They’re often able to contribute directly to companies too – as consultants, board members or even entrepreneurs.
There is a clear long-term shortage of truly talented men and especially women who can apply academic rigour to real-world management issues. What’s more, the continued globalisation of business has led to a search for alternatives to the traditional American
model of management – and an even greater demand for faculty with an international outlook. All this means that there’s no better training for “the best job in the world” than the INSEAD PhD in Management.
Diversity and
Excellence
Two continents, over twenty nationalities, multiple academic (and sometimes business) backgrounds, a wide range of ages, and almost as many women as men… INSEAD’s PhD in Management is the most diverse in the world – taught by one of the most international faculties.
But it’s also one of the smallest and most selective programmes of its kind.
These two facts are connected. Why? Because good research views a problem from every possible angle. It draws evidence, ideas and solutions from a wide pool of cultures, disciplines and experiences. It challenges the lazy assumptions that arise from a narrow outlook on the world.
Given the global shortage of female faculty in business schools, we’re proud that our most recent intakes have nearly equal numbers of women and men. Gender, along with other forms of diversity, is also a growing area of research interest at INSEAD.
‘The Business School for the World’ isn’t just a marketing slogan or ideal. Diversity is what makes INSEAD the number one MBA provider (according to the Financial Times) and one of the global top ten for research quality (according to the influential ‘UTD’ ranking). And our PhD programme only confirms that excellence and diversity go hand in hand.
Our international PhD community
Your first academic post
INSEAD PhD graduates have an outstanding placement record – and we do everything we can to help you find that all-important first academic post. Our faculty run regular workshops to help you prepare for the job market, together with communication training and coaching. And we organise experience-sharing sessions with students and graduates who have recently secured a position.
As completion of your dissertation approaches, you will receive a great deal of one-to-one attention from your individual dissertation chair, as well as support from your dissertation committee and other faculty from your area of specialisation (and beyond). This often includes “mock interviews” to help you polish your skills, as well as informal advice and networking.
Alumni network
Our placement record is reflected in the success of our 220 PhD alumni. Today, our graduates can be found throughout the world – teaching and researching at the top business schools and universities. They are also ambassadors for INSEAD and a valuable resource for you, as you go through the placement process. Here are just a few of the schools where you will find them.
220
Alumni
40
Countries
Americas
Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, UC Berkeley, Yale, UCLA, UC Riverside, Northwestern, Boston, Johns Hopkins, Michigan Ross, NYU Stern, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, Emory, Indiana, McGill, University of Western Ontario, University of British Columbia…
Europe
London Business School, London School of Economics, Imperial College of London, IE Madrid, IMD Lausanne, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, HEC Paris, IESE, ESMT Berlin, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Boccioni, Tilburg, Koç Üniversitesi …
Asia-Pacific
HKUST, CEIBS, Tsinghua, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University , IIMB Bangalore, Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Keio University, University of Technology Sydney, University of New South Wales Sydney …
PhD Programme
Areas of specialisation
Our choices of specialisation cover the whole breadth of business – and the entire business school curriculum: Accounting, Decision Sciences, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Marketing, Organisational Behaviour, Strategy and Technology and Operations Management. During the first two years of the programme there are also core courses common to all areas, giving you insights from other disciplines and confidence for your future career.
We also offer the opportunity to broaden and deepen your expertise by taking extra courses. Depending on your choice, you can receive additional certification in the following Disciplinary Tracks: Management Science, Organisation Science, Microeconomics, or Psychology and Behavioural Science. Choosing one (or more) of these tracks expands your job market opportunities or options later on in your career.
Accounting
We provide cutting-edge, comprehensive training in accounting research, with topics typically categorised into financial accounting or managerial accounting. This area of specialisation equips students with innovative tools to identify and understand the market – and the institutional forces that affect the production and use of financial and management information by organisations. It also provides rigorous training in economics and behavioural science.
Decision Sciences
Decision Sciences is a vibrant, interdisciplinary field that draws on economics, forecasting, statistics, and cognitive psychology. Broadly speaking, it addresses three fundamental and interrelated questions. First, how should a “rational” person make decisions? Second, how do people really make decisions? And third, how can we help people, especially managers, improve their decision making?
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship research is recognised as one of INSEAD’s greatest strengths. It explores the creation and growth of new organisations and markets, renewal of existing companies, creation of new businesses within existing firms, innovation, and family business in a global world. Companies are viewed through the lenses of organisation theory, strategy and social science disciplines, such as sociology, economics and psychology.
Finance
The Finance group at INSEAD has a strong reputation as a world leader in its field. A diverse group of faculty members offers expertise in a wide variety of areas, together with close supervision. INSEAD provides an outstanding environment for finance scholarship given the school’s traditionally strong position in management disciplines and its exceptional commitment to intellectual diversity.
Marketing
INSEAD’s Marketing area has an exceptional reputation. The group is among the most diverse and dynamic marketing department in leading business schools. Potential PhD research interests include: marketing strategy, marketing in virtual worlds, marketing and health, consumer behaviour, consumer learning, consumer decision making and neurosciences, among others. INSEAD’s behavioural lab in Paris is a particular asset in this field.
Organisational Behaviour
The INSEAD ‘OB’ area has world-class faculty with a strong commitment to nurturing up and coming researchers. Drawing on a broad range of social sciences disciplines, such as psychology, anthropology, sociology and economics, this field explores the behaviour of individuals in organisations (micro-level), work groups (meso-level) and organisations (macro-level). Potential topics of study include: leadership, team dynamics, personal and professional identity, gender and group diversity… to name just a few.
Strategy
The Strategy faculty at INSEAD are without doubt among the most respected experts in their field. With 20 resident professors, research interests and influences are highly diverse. Areas of interests for PhD candidates might include: competitive strategy, mergers and acquisitions, alliances, international management, knowledge management, organisational structure, strategy formulation and execution and corporate governance.
Technology and Operations Management
The ‘TOM’ group at INSEAD boasts 100% academic placement of PhD graduates, many of them at the world’s most highly regarded schools. With over 20 resident faculty, the area is at the forefront of research into innovation, supply chain management, healthcare and socially sustainable operations management – from closed-loop supply chains to humanitarian logistics.
Programme structure
The INSEAD PhD in Management is structured for academic and career success. The first two years offer a foundation (across both campuses) in your chosen area of specialisation, core business topics and research techniques. During the next three years, the focus shifts to your own research and dissertation – with extensive faculty support and mentorship.