PhD in Management

The intersection of people and enterprise

How does a dead fish handshake at an interview affect your chances of getting the job? How does experience working together improve a surgical team's performance? What makes top performers burn out, and how can managers head it off? Will extra perks like primo parking spots help you keep your rock star employees? How do astronauts on the International Space Station manage to stay engaged with all the tasks they have to complete in space? Do "bad bosses" ever make amends for their poor behavior?

Management is about answering questions. Specifically, questions about humans and their impact on the organizations they comprise, like the ones above.

The research topics tackled by our own management & entrepreneurship (M&E) faculty are as fascinating as they are varied. We have a reputation for one of the strongest M&E departments in the country, with a concentration of some of the best faculty in the field. As a Management PhD candidate here, you’ll be part of the excitement. You can turn your curiosity about how people and companies can work better into a successful career as a teacher and an influential thinker.

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At a glance

College Ranked Town

(reviews.org)

Faculty to PhD Student Ratio

Most productive management faculty

TAMUGA Rankings, Pubs/Faculty, 2021

Preserving a faculty ratio of 1:1

We compete with the nation’s highest-ranked business schools for the brightest PhD students. But our selectivity keeps the program small. We admit about 3 students annually from 40–50 applicants.

We support 14–15 PhD candidates, allowing us to maintain a one-to-one student-faculty ratio. That means you can count on attention and engaged mentoring as you progress through the program.

Faculty expertise and research interests

Full Professors

Amy Colbert - Intrinsic Motivation / Leadership / Person-Environment Fit / Personality / Workplace Relationships
Amy Kristof-Brown - Person-Environment Fit / Impression Management in Interviews / Teams
Greg Stewart - Health Care Management / Human resource management / Personality and performance / Self-directed teams
Ken Brown - e-learning / Leadership development / Motivation / Training
Ning Li - Big data and team collaboration / Individual differences / OCB and proactive behavior / Social network / Team leadership
Chad Van Iddekinge - Personnel selection / Job performance / Validation / Meta-analysis
Jennifer Nahrgang - Leadership and teams / Employee engagement / Future World of Work
Steve Courtright - Organizational leadership / Team Effectiveness

Associate Professors

Eean Crawford - Employee Engagement / Groups and Teams / Personality / Social Networks
Arturs Kalnins - Strategy / Entrepreneurship / Research Methods
Bodi Vasi - Corporate Social Responsibility / Economic Sociology / Non-Market Strategy / Social Movements

Assistant Professors

Rong Su - Gender and Diversity in Organizations / Individual Differences (Personality, Interests) / Person-Environment Fit / Research Methods / Meta-Analysis
Beth Livingston - Work and Family / Gender and Diversity in Organizations / Justice / Intersectionality / Human Resources
Michele Williams - Entrepreneurship and Innovation / Gender and Social Categorization / Trust and Collaboration
Semin Park - Dynamic Network Relations / Conflict / Team Composition / Multiteam Systems
Daniel Newton - Voice / Engagement / Teams

Bright prospects and a glowing record

Tippie Management PhDs contribute insight and research at universities and colleges around the world. Our record of success is impeccable: of the past 5 years, all PhD graduates have been placed in academic positions and since 2012, 18 of our alums have chosen tenure track academic positions.

2019 Management PhD Placements

Student	Grad Year	Dissertation Chair(s)	Initial Placement (with position)	Current Institution
Jordan Nielsen	2019	Amy Colbert	Purdue University (Assistant Prof)	Purdue University (Assistant Prof)
Zhenyu Yuan	2019	Ning Li	University of Illinois at Chicago (Assistant Prof)	University of Illinois at Chicago (Assistant Prof)
Christina Li	2019	Amy Kristof-Brown	Southern Methodist University (Visiting Assistant Prof)	Southern Methodist University (Visiting Assistant Prof)

2018-2012 Management PhD Placements

Our faculty help shape the field

On our faculty roster, you’ll find some big-time M&E researchers. Like Amy Kristof-Brown, an internationally recognized expert in person-organization fit. Or Ning Li, a researcher of social networks, team leadership, and discretionary behaviors, whose research ranks him near the top worldwide among early-career management professors. And Greg Stewart, who’s in the midst of cutting-edge research on medical care provider teams in the V.A. hospital system.

Our heavy-hitter lineup is long and growing. Faculty like Ken Brown, Amy Colbert, Eean Crawford, Rong Su, Michele Williams, Beth Livingston, Semin Park, Daniel Newton, and Bodi Vasi produce industry-leading research and guide our PhD students through their degree.

We’re also some of the most published authors in the leading management and applied psychology journals, like the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Journal of Management. Our faculty productivity is ranked 9th in the TAMUGA research rankings, and we are constantly engaged in interesting, applicable, and cutting-edge research.

See faculty research

Student Story

Daniel Goering

“It was through this experience I realized, wow. This is how I can help—by applying research to complex, difficult, and delicate issues.”

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