Sprott’s PhD in Management – 20 Years and Counting
Recently, the Sprott School of Business celebrated the 20th anniversary of its PhD in Management program.
Gerald Grant, the director of the PhD program, proudly noted that the program has met its goal “to develop graduates who are skilled in research who have the capacity to advance management knowledge and practice through the prescient application of theoretical and practical insight.”
He shared that 56 of their PhD alumni now work in academia and 23 are in practice roles in both the private and public sectors. Two of these people spoke at the celebration.
Alumnus Yves Decady (PhD/00), now an analyst with Statistics Canada, talked about a Canadian Perspective on Living Longer and Working Longer. Decady says that his Sprott School experience helped him attain his goals: “Strong management and research skills acquired through the PhD program have certainly had a beneficial effects on both starting a career in the Public Service of Canada and moving between and within organizations, making me a candidate highly desirable and suitable for positions in various organizations.”
Alumnus Gregory Richards (PhD/04), now the directeur, programme MBA for the Telfer School of Management, talked about his research on Big Data and Analytics (BDA). He noted that, “the fact that the Carleton PhD allowed me to customize my program to address technology, knowledge and the human aspects of organizations provided a sound platform for me to conduct research in the field of BDA.”
Also on hand at the celebration were some current Sprott School students, including the following who talked about their research:
- Erin Oldford who shared her research on the Anatomy of negative acquisition premium targets. Oldford said “The symposium was a celebration of the products of our program’s labours. It was an incredible meeting of minds where current students, Faculty, and alumni shared their work and ideas. I left inspired.”
- Michael Halinski who talked about Making Sense of Transorganizational System Change: Am I winning or losing?
- Daniel Gulanowski & Llynne Plante who shared information about The Uppsala Model of Internationalization: Review, Evolution, and Context
- Harry Chhina spoke about Organizational climate as a moderator of the relationship between leadership style and leadership effectiveness
As well, the Sprott School hosted a panel on the Sustainability of the Police in Canada: A Complex Management Issue that featured Chris McCord, Deputy Chief of Police, Field Operations, Peel Regional Police, Linda Duxbury, Professor, Sprott School of Business and two current PhD students.
Professor Roy Suddaby from the University of Victoria was the keynote speaker. He not only talked about Wisdom Through Theory but was very engaged giving valuable feedback to the student presenters. He also provided valuable insights into the future of PhDs in Management.
Suddaby said that business schools need to adopt multiple ways of knowing – through integrative thinking achieved by abandoning the silos of departmentalized knowledge; through practice-based research in which we abandon our notions of being scientists and adopt the guise of craftsmen who shape knowledge through intimate interaction with the world rather than objective distance from it; and they need to engage more with arts, history and the humanities in business schools in order to adopt the wisdom of judgement and character in their teaching and research.
He said: “We need more wisdom in management thinking and research and I am pleased to see that Sprott has been doing this for 20 years.”