REVIEW
Monthly Luncheon with Prakash Singh Dr Prakash J. Singh is Professor and Head of the Department of Management and Marketing at The University of Melbourne, having served as the department’s PhD director for three years, supervised ten successful PhD students and seven postdoctoral research fellows. At May’s Monthly Luncheon, Professor Singh discussed the differences between the presentday PhD process in Australia, comparing it to the North American model, the evolution of the PhD program in Australia and some of the realities around the PhD from the perspective of the student and the university. At the Faculty of Business and Economics, many enquiries are received from a wide range of people with general interest who wish to pursue a PhD, whether in economics or accounting, finance, or management or marketing, with the reality being that PhD directors are having to turn down very good candidates. Professor Singh ventured to explain why this is the case, what is happening at this highest level of study and what is different about what is happening in the business area as opposed to what is happening in other fields of study. What is a PhD in business? The PhD, explained Professor Singh, is about someone contributing to knowledge - there is a very broad objective that can be achieved in many ways.
Lower levels of study are usually the acquisition of knowledge but at the PhD level it is generally about making some sort of contribution to the body of knowledge. There is a big difference between science and social sciences fields. If you think about a contribution to knowledge in the sciences it is usually through a discovery - that, if you like, is the nature of the PhD in sciences. In the arts and the social sciences, contribution can be somewhat challenging in the sense that we are not necessarily discovering new things or inventing new things. What is it that we look for when we’re talking about contribution to knowledge? Fundamentally in the social sciences it is about a focus on theory – theory is a very valuable instrument when it comes to developing unique and novel insights into all kinds of phenomena and it can also be very useful in terms of providing critical commentary and generating philosophical interest. The PhD in the social sciences is about contributing deep theoretical insight to the body of knowledge. In the business area, practical insight is vital. Perhaps in other area of the humanities and social sciences, the practical side might not be as important compared to theory, but in the business area, real-world relevance is imperative. A strong grounding in reality or
The evolving nature of the PhD and how it relates to business.
practice is usually a starting point for a PhD in business. An applicant might be interested in a whole range of issues. Professor Singh’s department of Management and Marketing, for example, is quite interested in what motivates individuals, in how teams work and what makes them effective, and in looking at an organisational level, comparing one set of teams to others. “We are usually very strongly interested in real world phenomena and then using rigorous methods to bring the understanding to a level which can be generalised and that then becomes a strong theoretical contribution,” said Professor Singh. “That is a critical element of what PhD level study in the business area is,” he added. “Slightly more advanced than is typically the case in the humanities and the arts which can generally remain at the philosophical or theoretical level in the business area we’re always asking relevance questions.”
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Professor Singh compared the past nature of the PhD to its current state, by looking at aspects including thesis, timelines, supervisory model, study approach and the model (British or US). Thesis The past model saw the thesis in the business domain as a single voluminous tome, however now it is increasingly in the format of two or three essays which are close to journal articles or manuscripts that could be submitted. In many cases those manuscripts would already be submitted to a journal, and in some cases these would have already been accepted for publication before that candidate is ready to graduate. Timeline A PhD program used to have a timeline of three years. Now the Faculty of Business and Economics has a four-year program, and sister departments in economics, finance and accounting are moving to a five-year fulltime program. The Department of Management and Marketing, explained Professor Singh, will be moving to this timeline. The very
top schools around the world are offering six-year PhDs - some have even seven-year PhD programs. Supervisory Model In the past there were one or two supervisors – the nuclear family model: two parents and students. In the new model there is a supervisory panel consisting of a principal supervisor, a subject matter specialist that compliments the principal supervisor, a methodology expert and a senior academic, all of whom are overseen by the Head of the Department. Study approach The traditional model focused on independent, autonomous, self-paced learning. While that is expected in the new world, it is not limited to this model. We now have an expectation that there would be a high degree of collaboration, not just within the advisory panel but also to others, more so internationally if possible. Models While the traditional model is the British model, many PhD programs outside of the US and Canada are moving towards the North American model, the question of why, therefore arising.
“The reality is that our highest quality journals and those who publish in these journals are expected to be trained with this model. North Americans have had this model for many years and it is a very successful model. Given that the North Americans also control all of our major journals, it naturally follows that their's is the training model required for such success,” explained Professor Singh. “Beyond that, when it comes to placement of our graduates, the universities to which our graduates aspire towards, we have not been able to crack the Ivy League and we have not been able to place a PhD graduate into a program at these universities,” explained Professor Singh. “We are very successful locally and we’ve also been successful in Europe, graduates earning positions in Oxford and Cambridge.” “Many of our candidates have gone to interview in North America for jobs, but they basically don’t understand what’s involved in a three-year PhD program. Most universities are not willing to take a punt on these graduates.”
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