SCIL at Católica Lisbon and INCEA Business School‘s Andrea Prado organized this year’s ONE Doctoral Consortium at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Atlanta

At this year’s ONE Doctoral Consortium in Atlanta 24 PhD students were admitted to discuss their dissertation projects in small groups with senior faculty members. After a welcome lunch and some opening statements and introductions, the students joined small research feedback sessions with two or three other students and one faculty member. In addition to the research feedback sessions, some faculty members discussed career issues with the students before the Consortium ended with a Cocktail Reception, where there was opportunity to continue the conversations over drinks and appetizers.

The organizers Andrea Prado (INCAE) and René Bohnsack (Católica-Lisbon), decided to conduct a follow-up survey among the PhDs to get deeper insights into the expectations and needs of the participants which resulted in interesting results. There was a good mix between PhD students at the beginning and at the end of their PhD, the average being 3.6 years.

Overall, receiving feedback on their PhD project was the main reason for the students to participate in the Doctoral Consortium. Also, getting to know like-minded PhDs, hearing about post-PhD career options and meeting senior faculty members were expressed as important reasons.

For the Early PhDs (1^st – 3^rd year) it was most important to receive feedback on their projects, whereas for the Advanced PhD students (4^th – 6^th year) learning about post-PhD career options, getting to know like-minded PhD students as well as meeting senior faculty members were the most important expectations.

We will use these insights for the planning of next year’s ONE Doctoral Consortium in Chicago. Generally, the participants really enjoyed the Consortium which is reflected in the overall rating of 8.0 (n=20).

We would like to use this opportunity to thank the fourteen faculty members who made this Consortium a success: Andy Hoffman, Eun-Hee Kim, Alfie Marcus, Michael Lenox, Ivan Montiel, Tima Bansal, Timo Busch, Jonatan Pinkse, Joern Hoppmann, Pete Tashman, Martina Linnenluecke, Irene Henriques, Omar Asensio, and Sally Russell. We would also like to thank the students for their eager participation in the Consortium as well as for filling in the survey. See you next year in Chicago!