PROFESSIONALIZATION IN DOCTORAL EDUCATION

The role of supervision

Marie-Laure DJELICAssociate Dean, PhD Program

ESSEC Business School

THE ”WHY” QUESTIONROLE OF A PHD PROGRAM (1)

• A reservoir of ”cheap labour” for chaired professors

• A symbolic marker for a University or an Institute

• A source of funding in some Universities

• One particular ”product” in a wide range of programmes

THE ”WHY” QUESTIONROLE OF A PHD PROGRAM (2)

• A placement machine – ensuring PhD students get a (good) job

• A process to produce ”sustainable scholars” – beyond the Diploma and the Job

• A process to increase the research orientation of a Faculty body

INTERESTING QUESTION AS TO WHERE OUR RESPONSIBILITY STOPS….

THE ”HOW” QUESTIONSTRUCTURE OF PhD PROGRAMS

(1)• A great diversity in the structure and make-

up of programs

• In Europe, two extreme ideal types• Traditional continental/German model• US Phd model (2+2/3)

• On a continuum between• Everything in English• Everything in the national language

• On a continuum between• Nearly no course requirements• A full Master Research program as a first

step

THE ”HOW” QUESTIONNATURE OF PHD PROGRAMS (2)

• Small-size programs with cost, resources and staffing issues

• A great diversity of structures and roles. Diversity is enriching….but creates obstacles

INTERESTING QUESTION AS TO WHERE OUR RESPONSIBILITY STARTS….

CURRENT TRENDS

• Towards more structured PhD programs

• A lot of work is being done on the formal training part of the program

• Either through the development of courses in-house or through the use of different strategies to enhance cross-program collaborations

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COMPARING STRATEGIES

NATIONAL TRANS-NATIONAL

Adhoc Collaborations

(A)

Networks (C)or

Hubs(D)

FLUID

National Consortia

(B)

Trans-nationalPrograms

(E)STRUCTURED

NATIONAL CONSORTIA

• SUBS – Stockholm/Uppsala Business Studies

• Bringing together the two programs – in 2010 a total of 19 students

• Common compulsory and elective courses, shared between Uppsala and Stockholm

• The thesis process remains associated with each organization

TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS

• Fluid but real collaboration between a small network of programs around the world

• More or less breadth

• Division of labour on certain courses

• Exchange of visiting PhD students and/or Faculty members

• Agreement on shared quality criteria seems necessary

djelic@essec.fr 10

TRANS-NATIONAL HUBSSOME EXAMPLES

• EIASM PhD seminars, EDAMBA Summer Research Academy

• Pre-conference doctoral courses

• Summer/Winter courses

• Open enrollment courses offered by a particular institution (Scancor, CBS….)

JOINT PHD PROGRAMS

• CLEI /IEL– International PhD program (Center for the Comparative Analysis of Law and Economics, Economics of Law, Economics of Institution), founded in 2004• CRG – Polytechnique, France• Cornell University• Law School at the Centre of Advanced Studies in

Law and Economics, University of Gent, Belgium• University degli Studi di Torino• Joined later 5 other European programs

• First year – compulsory course work in Turin with professors coming from all over the network. Preliminary exams.

• Second year – development of the research at one of the schools depending on the topic/fields of their project. Mobility of at least 6 months within the network is compulsory

• Third year will be devoted to completion of the doctoral dissertation.

DOCTORAL SUPERVISION

• Within Phd programs much less attention is paid in general to the Doctoral Supervision Process

• Arguably, though, the quality of doctoral supervision makes the difference between• An input to an output program (students

really graduating)• A diploma-only to a job placement

program• A job placement to a scholar-generating

program

DOCTORAL SUPERVISION

• For thesis completion

• For Professionalization• Finding a job• Becoming a ”self-sustainable”

scholar

TOPICS WE ARE WORKING ON

• Supervision for thesis work• Organization, challenges and constraints• Ethics and the doctoral contract – the

student/supervisor relationship, plagiarism and other issues, management of conflicts, representation of students’ interests

• Supervision for professionalization• Turning our students from the start into

researchers – and in time stand alone researchers

• Socializing our students as members of an intellectual community – and more often than not of several different intellectual communities

SOME BASICS OF SUPERVISION (1)

• Number of PhD students being supervised - limit

• Is supervision part of the formal work load – associated with ”real time” - or is it coming on top of the rest?

• What is the value – institutional and personal – placed on the PhD program and PhD supervision compared to other activities?

• Stages in a career• Can a freshly minted PhD be ”availabl for and effective at

supervision? • Can a senior professor with a lot of competing administrative

responsibilities be available for supervision?

• General availability and regularity of meeting points – skype is great but regular physical encounters are important too

• Creating a formal memory of the supervision process? An online log? The fine line between efficacy and bureaucracy

SOME BASICS OF SUPERVISION (2)

• Readiness to listen and to ”understand” who the student is

• Adequation between research pedigree of the supervisor and the needs of the PhD student

• Willingness and institutional flexibility to ”share” supervision

• The necessary ”humble” posture – the importance of being a connector

• Effectiveness of feedback – timeliness, substantive and written feedback, to do lists with deadlines….

MOVING BEYOND

SUPERVISION FOR PROFESSIONALIZATION

SUPERVISION AND PUBLICATION

• Early start on the publication game – many programs are now encouraging students in that direction

• The role of the supervisor• The challenge of creating a virtuous circle –

between two scholars at different stages of their career

• Need to move away from an old ”continental model”

• Pros and cons – fast to the publishing line…but how to ensure autonomy afterwards?

• Ethical issues – and conflict resolution mechanisms

SUPERVISION AND COMMUNITY BUILDING WITHIN (1)

• Creating a sense of community between students of the same program

• Creating a sense of commnunity between students and faculty members of the same program

• The supervisor as facilitator• Calls for a sense of community between

different supervisors• And a capacity to work together• The particular case of co-supervision• Issues of ”territory” and ”susceptibility”

SUPERVISION AND COMMUNITY BUILDING WITHIN (2)

• Importance of the logistics• Office space, common room, possibly students

living not too far from each other…

• Availability or construction or regular events (workshops, brownbags, seminars….)

• Institutionalized incentives to ”share” PhD students and to spend time on community building

• Availability of formalized rules of the game and conflict resolution mechanisms at the level of the program

SUPERVISION AND COMMUNITY BUILDING ACROSS

• Not only sending students to conferences but going to conferences with students

• Referencing students to helpful networks or colleagues in other institutions

• Working with students on the debrief of those encounters

• Building upon personal networks to send students away

SUPERVISION AND JOB MARKET PREPARATION

• Letters of recommendation

• Job market mock talks

• Allowing students to attend recruitment seminars (”community within”)

• Proximity coaching and debrief during the process

SUPERVISION AND ETHICAL TRAINING

• A ”role model” responsibility for the supervisor

• Sharing the ethics of our trade not only in theory but also in practice

• Walking the Talk and exhibiting Integrity

SUPERVISION AND AUTONOMY BUILDING

• Allowing for an enlarged intellectual space DURING the PhD process• Letting students explore topics, methods,

theories you are not familiar with – as long as this is done under proper guidance

• Allowing students to get multiple sources of intellectual inspiration

• After the PhD, working with your students still – but letting them take the lead!...

CHALLENGES

• Balancing between active specialization (publishing) and intellectual openness (autonomization)

• Balancing between supervision as a one-to-one relationship and supervision as a collective endeavour

• Balancing between distance and proximity

• Balancing between the provision of intellectual tools and personal coaching

• Balancing between stiffling control and neglect

• Balancing between time pressure and maturation

• Balancing between over-protection and destructive harschness

• Balancing between generosity and utilitarianism (time, resources, first other practice….)

METAPHORS

METAPHOR SUPERVISOR ROLE

STUDENT ROLE

Journey Guide Traveler

Project Customer Project Manager

Marriage Spouse Spouse

Family Parent Child

Magic Wizard Novice

Survival Test Mother Nature Survivor

Servitude Master Slave

Adapted from: Baskerville and Russo (2005), « Metaphors for PhD Study », in Avison and Pries-Heje (eds), Research in IS: A Handbook for Research Supervisors

and their Students, Elsevier.

DEFINITION?

”Mentors are advisors, people with career experience willing to share their knowledge; supporters, people who give emotional and moral encouragement; tutors, people who give specific feedback on one’s performance; masters, in the sense of employers to whom one is apprenticed; sponsors, sources of information about and aid in obtaining opportunities; models, of identity, of the kind of person one should be to be an academic”

Morris Zelditch, 1990, Speech to the Western Association of Graduate Schools