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Abstract

Taltech School of Business and Governance, Department of Business Administration offers 4-year PhD position in digitalization and organizations.

Research field: Economics and finance
Supervisor: Susanne Durst
Availability: This position is available.
Offered by: School of Business and Governance
Department of Business Administration
Application deadline:Applications are accepted between June 01, 2020 00:00 and July 03, 2020 23:59 (Europe/Zurich)

Description

The digital transformation causes substantial shifts in organizations and their way of working. As a consequence, any organization is required to update its skills and competencies to meet these shifts. Additionally, digitalization disrupts extant management systems, creating both new opportunities and challenges for the formation and design of organizations. 

Keeping path with these changes is challenging as internal processes, routines, and mind-sets do not change quickly. Moreover, the current debate on digital transformation is still characterized by a strong imagery that praises the opportunities of digitalizations in the highest posible terms, and often plays with the fear claiming that without a short-term realisation of the digital transformation organizations will lose out; here it sometimes seems that it does not really matter what the problem is – the answer will come from advanced IT technologies. Likely consequences are obvious, organizations including policy makers approach the digital transformation by means of ad hoc solutions, e.g. the order of new software or adoption of new technologies, thereby overlooking the crucial need of understanding the structural and cultural contexts that they are supposed to benefit. Last but not least recent developments in the area of artificial intelligence also raise ethical questions that require careful consideration from different perspectives.

From a research perspective, there is a strong need to discuss the digital transformation and its possible differential implications on private and public organizations from a more balanced point of view. Researchers should approach digital transformation and its consequences on organizations and their sustainable development with more scrutiny and reflection.

We are looking for a PhD candidate who is interested in investigating with us opportunities and challenges related to digitalization and organizations from a critical point of view. We appreciate but do not demand interdisciplinary PhD projects between business administration and other research fields focusing on sustainable digitalization of organizations. The selected PhD candidate will be granted independence regarding her/his choice of theorectical frame, research philosophy, and methodology.

The PhD candidate should already have learned or is willing to learn one or more research methodologies and methods as for example experiments, surveys and related statistical techniques, case-study analysis, and methods for analysing longitudinal quantitative and/or qualitative secondary data.

It is highly appreciated that the applicant comes up with own research ideas about what is an interesting and relevant phenomenon in the specified topic area. Our expectation is that the selected candidate’s thesis will contribute new knowledge to the research field of digitalization in organizations having a clear focus on sustainability.

The doctoral candidate will be working within the Research Group Organization and Management at the Department of Business Administration and she/he is expected to contribute to on-going research projects conducted in the group.

The candidate’s main task will be to prepare a doctoral thesis in the field of Digitalization and Organizations under the supervision of Professor Susanne Durst. The candidate is also expected to engage in the facilitation across production/product managers and students, and small-scale teaching, with support of the immediate supervisors and colleagues.

The applicants should fulfill the following requirements:

  • Candidates are required to hold a Master’s degree, or its equivalent, from a university in management or a related field.
  • Applicants should be fluent in English in speaking and writing, engaged and ready to work independently, but also be interested in doing joint research with others, supervised under the direction of Professor Susanne Durst.
  • Previous background in disciplines such as Management, Strategy, Innovation, Organization Development, and Risk Management is desirable, but any discipline can be considered.
  • Applicants should have an interest in reading peer-reviewed international articles and provide evidence of advanced academic writing skills.
  • Strong communication and analytical skills are crucial for the successful completion of the PhD project.
  • The post is suitable for someone with both qualitative and quantitative research skills. Solid quantitative skills are a clear asset.
  • The candidate should be able to communicate well with different stakeholders such as national and international businesses, government departments and bodies, and academic community; and interested in further developing the research group’s international academic networks.