Christopher Bruno (Guest Author) Deciding to “take on more work” as a PhD student. Last year, I had the pleasure to participate in the inaugural Collective Impact dissertation workshop offered by this salon [Learn more here]. Initially I hesitated to show interest because it sounded like “more work” on top…Read More
doctoral education ci
The Art of Translating Current Events into Research
by Jerry Davis In a previous post I described the benefits of using the real world to source research topics, and how seasoned scholars like Mayer Zald had the ability to read the newspaper and have insightful takes that could spark a study – maybe even a dissertation. The world…Read More
News You Can Use: How Staying in Touch with the World Improves Your Problem Sense
by Jerry Davis In partnership with Phanish Phurnam and the Collective Impact Salon, we are in the second year of our project to help PhD students choose a dissertation topic. We started with a familiar insight: the time after comprehensive exams can be a twilight zone of uncertainty. Doctoral training…Read More
Mapping the Murky Waters: The Promise of Integrative Experiment Design
by Abdullah Almaatouq (Guest Author) My PhD journey began with a clear vision: to unravel the interplay between social network structures and their collective outcomes. I was particularly interested in the collective intelligence arising in those structures. With several projects already underway on this topic, I felt prepared. Perhaps optimistically,…Read More
On the Folly of Rewarding Production While Hoping For Quality: Reconsidering How Peer Review Is Essential For Collective Impact
by Matthew A. Cronin (Guest Author) Peer review is an essential part of the “collective” in creating collective impact. It is what makes management science science. In a time when desirable findings and folk wisdom can be easily dressed up using pseudoscience, unsound tests, confirmatory hypothesis testing, or a host…Read More
Dissertation Canvas
by Phanish Puranam I have no doubt that the hardest part, by far, of the Ph.D. student’s journey is finding a thesis topic, and then a cast of characters who are enthusiastic enough about the topic to serve as a thesis committee. How do you select a suitable dissertation topic?…Read More
Teaching Generalizability to Both Undergraduate and Doctoral Students
by Lori Rosenkopf Determining how and when empirical results are generalizable is critical to increase the impact of academic research. It is also a valuable thinking skill for non-academics. Hence, we need to build this skill into our educational offerings at all levels. Since doctoral students are academics in training,…Read More
Who Is A Dissertation For?
by Jerry Davis Is there an audience for academic research? While it may seem an obvious yes who is that audience? Of all the things I neglected to learn in graduate school, this one took the longest to address. Recognizing that someone might read, and better yet make a decision…Read More
Want Your Research To Have Impact? Consider These Three Questions
by Olav Sorenson Most academics I know want their research to have an impact, to influence the way people think and behave. But few of us succeed. Who's to blame? Usually, the blame gets placed on practitioners, for failing either to read the research or to understand how to put…Read More