Is my PhD of any value to my corporate career?

 

 

I have interviewed about hundred potential PhD scholars during ‘PhD in management’ admission interview. Several candidates were from business professionals. One obvious question asked by the panelists, me included, - what is the motivation to do PhD? All the candidates, without any exception, from working business professionals responded that they intended to acquire higher qualification for self - satisfaction and quite a few indicated that they wanted to switch their career from corporate to academics. None told that they wanted to enhance their career by improving complex business problem solving skill and decision-making abilities. This raise a question- is PhD of no value to corporate career development and advancement? In other words, put differently, does PhD add any value to management practice? The point is not new. It has been debated since long. In this article we will try to get an answer to this issue and hope that it will motivate the practitioner-scholars to take PhD process more seriously even for their corporate career.

PhD research skills are highly transferable to any field if seriously acquired and pursued. The process of PhD research is: searching a re-searchable problem, which calls for critical examination of what is known and what is not known in an area and put the findings in the form of a research proposal that is presented before a committee and defended. Once approved, the scholar is supposed to carry out a literature survey and critically examine the findings from the extant literature in the context of his own research problem to form hypothesis or research questions, select appropriate methodology to conduct survey or experiment to collect data and analyse the data through appropriate tools. After analysis a theory has to be developed, which explains a phenomenon by establishing cause and effect relationship. In the end the scholar is required to write a thesis where he or she has to argue in a systematic way to communicate his findings with help of logic. The same is presented for evaluation by examiners and if accepted by the examiners it is again presented to a panel and the thesis has to be defended. In the meantime, the scholar has to publish papers in peer reviewed journals. The process of publication demands addressing the reviewers’ comments by modifying the original paper. Often the paper needs several modifications and many a time the same is rejected.

In this journey the scholar acquires the following skills and attributes:

Critical examination, ability to communicate logically both written and verbal, flexibility, ability to retrieve critical information from an information crowd, be inquisitive, develop habit of reading and theory building. Now the question is, which one is not applicable in corporate? A good decision maker needs all of the skills in today’s context.

But in reality, the scholar missed the opportunity and both the research supervisor, with due respect to the research supervisors, and the business professional scholars are equally responsible. The scholar proposes a topic based on his experience, which many a time is not a PhD-able topic. The supervisor asks to change the topic for good reasons but without fully understanding the issue. Often the scholars are of view that the supervisors are not understanding the corporate world and the supervisors are of the opinion that the scholar is very rigid and not flexible. Two things happen- after couple of years or months the scholar loses the interest and opt-out from the process or he simply agrees only to do the job so that he gets a PhD. Often the scholars are not sensitized to the applicability of PhD in business and corporate career and does not appreciate the value of PhD in his corporate career advancement. Though the PhD degree per se may not help him in the corporate world but the skills, he gains from the PhD research process, empower him to take better decisions, present his views on different issues more logically thus able to sell his point of view, learns research as a problem-solving tool in complex business area. Able to build theory which helps explain any phenomenon and makes prediction possible.

To summarise it may be concluded that the business professional research scholars must appreciate that the PhD is not only for PhD shake or to switch to academics, but it is very much relevant to the corporate world. The PhD supervisors also should be sensitive to the practical issues of the corporate that a practicing scholar brings to the table. This will help them also to understand the real world. Both shall appreciate that the academic approach is also applicable to the practice though for time pressure and urgency it is not possible always to take the academic approach of inquiry in practical situation but the principles are no less relevant to the practice.

Having served both the corporate and academics post PhD, I can tell with confidence that “Research is research and practice is practice, twine shall not meet” is no longer true. As for example, in one corporate sector I was entrusted with the responsibility to implement Enterprise Risk Management. Those days ISO 31000 was not published. Though industry standards designed by professional bodies were there but it was not easily comprehensible and was difficult to put into practice in the context of the firm. But I could apply my critical examination and systematic thinking skill to bring structure to the otherwise fuzzy issue and could effectively convince the management to follow a simple approach to implement the concept within a short time. Similar examples I can give from academics as well.  Instead of giving examples from my experience I will present an interesting development in the field of management practice.

We all have heard of evidence -based medicine / practice (EBP). Taking a clue from EBP, a concept- evidence-based management (EBM) has been developed and being used in practice. Several organisations like, CEBMa, Campbell Library, ‘Innovation Growth Lab’ and ‘Science for Work’     are doing excellent work in this field. EBM approach calls for taking decisions based on evidence. And evidence is taken from various sources including from the academic research outcome, which is published in academic journals. EBM philosophy demands for examining the effectiveness of any management fads through evidences before its implementation in practice. The guiding principle of medicine, ‘in the first place do not harm’ is applicable in management field as well. We do not count the cost of failure of any management initiative that we try to implement in our firms. We do consider the flip side of fads but ignore the downside. Therefore, we take great risk without considering the efficacy of any tool or fad. The EBM approach is of huge value in decision making and it needs all the skills of conducting research and as a PhD holder you will be in a better position to help improve decision making by taking EBM approach.

Thus, both the academic and business practice school of thoughts are complementary to each other. Sooner it is realised by the practitioners and the academicians it is better for both the world.