Ph.D. in Business Administration

The Ph.D. track in Entrepreneurship focuses on preparing scholars to address questions of contemporary interest to entrepreneurship scholarship and practice. The ENT track places particular emphasis on the cognitive, cultural, and social aspects of entrepreneurship that complement traditional economic perspectives. This involves, for instance, questions of how entrepreneurs engage in efforts to make their endeavors more credible, meaningful, and appealing to others (e.g., through their choice of actions, words, labels and symbols), along with the implications of such efforts for stakeholder support and market evolution, among other outcomes. To support inquiries of this sort, the track encourages and trains students to use multi-level and innovative research methodologies, including qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches.

Students in the Ph.D. track in entrepreneurship will take the required courses in the first two years and work closely with one or more faculty members. By their third and fourth years, most students are well-positioned to work on their dissertation and are encouraged to pursue their research stream. A distinguishing feature of the Ph.D. track in entrepreneurship is its focus on preparing students to create novel, engaging and impactful scholarship. This feature is enabled by an apprenticeship model in which students work closely with faculty mentors to develop expertise in both the craft of research and their chosen area of study. The program is small and emphasizes intensive faculty collaboration, flexibility in a portfolio of coursework, and timely completion of the degree.

The digital age challenges managers with evolving and disruptive information technologies critical to business competitiveness. The Ph.D. track in Information Systems (IS) focuses on cutting-edge IS research that, at its most basic level, addresses the simple question: "How do we make businesses better through the use of information technology (IT)?" This question is examined at the individual, organizational and inter-organizational (platform and supply chain) levels through a variety of theoretical perspectives, using a rich repertoire of research methodologies. IS research at Clemson emphasizes the managerial, strategic and organizational aspects of information management and use. Information technology applications such as digital platforms, information system security, social networks, and business analytics are foci of inquiry, as are IT management approaches, such as software development, IT innovation management, information management capability development, IT investment, and digital platform management.

With the ubiquity of IT in business and society, the IS field's growth has been phenomenal. Consequently, the demand for IS Ph.D. graduates in academia and industry continues to be very strong. We train students to engage in cutting-edge empirical studies on IS and IT using advanced data analytics (e.g., machine learning, deep learning, and reinforcement learning) and econometrics approaches (e.g., panel data analytics, difference-in-difference, and instrumental variables). The IS Ph.D. track supports flexibility in designing a study program based on a student's particular research interests.

Faculty and doctoral students conduct research in the following areas:

• Digital Business Strategy
• Information System Security
• Digital Platforms and Ecosystems
• Health Information Systems
• Logistics Information Systems
• Social Media and Network Analytics
• Asset-Sharing Platforms
• Organizational Impacts of Information Technologies
• IS-Business Strategic Alignment and Governance
• IS Project Management
• IS Outsourcing
• IT-enabled Supply Chain Integration
• Building IT Organizational Capabilities
• IT-enabled Radical and Incremental Process Innovation
• Information Disclosure and Privacy Behavior
• Software Piracy
• Analytical Decision Support and Design
• Agile Development and Project Management

The OB/HR track offers doctoral students the opportunity to generate, explore and analyze research questions centered on the behavior of individuals, groups and organizations. Focus areas include topics such as leadership, motivation, power and influence, group dynamics, trust and relational exchange, conflict, culture, personality and emotions, political affiliation, building cohesion and inclusivity, employee wellbeing, personnel selection, rewards and incentives, performance management and organizational change.

Through coursework, research projects and the completion of a dissertation, students will learn the analytical skills needed to better understand and lead a workforce. The program aspires to develop skilled scholars and effective teachers for placement at leading research universities worldwide and is led by scholars who regularly publish in top-tier journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Annals, Journal of Management, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Personnel Psychology, The Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Organizational Behavior and the Human Resources Management Journal.

Our students take foundational courses in the first two years and work with one or more faculty members to develop their research skills and interests. By their third and fourth years, most students are well-positioned to work on their dissertation and are encouraged to pursue their research stream. The track also encourages and trains students to use multi-level and innovative research methodologies.

The Ph.D. program in Strategic Management (STR) focuses on preparing students for success in research universities and conducting impactful research in the domain of strategic management. The domain is broad with diverse contributions from multiple disciplines and research traditions that examine various levels of theory and analysis - from strategic decision-makers to entire organizations and industries, and from individual organizations to institutions and national economic systems.

The program aspires to develop skilled scholars and effective teachers for placement at leading research universities worldwide. US and international individuals who are intellectually curious, innovative, disciplined and tenacious are encouraged to apply.

The STR track is spearheaded by the Gressette Chair of Business Strategy and Planning, Professor Zeki Simsek. The STR group within the Management Department comprises research-oriented faculty who actively shape the field's scholarly conversations and contributions. Management faculty regularly publish in top-tier journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Annals, Journal of Management, Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Applied Psychology, The Leadership Quarterly, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Small Business Economics and Journal of Business Venturing, as well as in other top-tier journals in the fields of MIS and SCOM.

Students in the STR take the required courses in the first two years and work with one or more faculty members. By their third and fourth years, most students are well-positioned to work on their dissertation and are encouraged to pursue their research stream. The track also encourages and trains students to use multi-level and innovative research methodologies. Another distinguishing feature is a focus on the scholarship of engagement and impact.

SC/OM students have the opportunity to conduct their dissertation research under the aegis of world-class faculty, who are highly regarded by peers as current and future thought leaders for their scholarly accomplishments, as well as their professional society and journal editorial leadership roles. The SC/OM faculty consistently publishes high-impact papers in premier journals that advance research, practice and policy, and many of the SC/OM doctoral students are recipients of best paper and other awards for their efforts.

Clemson SC/OM doctoral students undertake a rich and rigorous set of courses that build competence in both empirical and analytic research, which in turn, along with high-quality faculty mentoring, prepares them to tackle thorny, contemporary real-world problems in the Operations Value Chain (OVC) for their dissertation research and beyond in their academic careers. OVC covers services, manufacturing, upstream and downstream supply chain partners, and the associated research typically employs multidisciplinary lenses and theories (e.g., social, policy and health sciences, as well as mathematics, engineering and statistics). Moreover, it often crosses functional business interfaces (e.g., with marketing, finance, strategic management, information systems, etc.). Illustrative are the many cutting-edge topics where SC/OM faculty and doctoral students collaborate, including operations strategy; design for customer experience and well-being; incentives for workers and teams; omnichannel effectiveness in retail and financial services; building resilience to operational risks - from assessment of product quality failures to managing complexity in network design, to how to use foreign national supply chains to mitigate in-country political risks; new product, process and/or advanced technology development and value chain integration; impact of customer/supplier product reviews; hospital administrative operations and deployment of predictive, personal health care through artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics; the role of operations in sustainability and climate change; humanitarian operations; and the internet of things (IoT).

Increasingly, OVC performance seeks to go beyond financial performance, carrying over to customer satisfaction and experience, and further stretching towards policies pertaining to human, environmental and socio-economic well-being. More recently, our doctoral students are investigating transformational OVC issues emerging from COVID-19 (e.g., the shortcomings revealed in traditional 'efficient' supply chains, including the maldistribution and shortages of food, medicine and supplies, disinfectants, testing, etc., as well as other surfacing strategic, operational and business issues, including how to re-engineer and design new business and OVC models for resiliency. Our faculty and doctoral student research reach is global and spans many industrial and service sectors.

Our methodologies are extensive. We cover the gamut depending on the nature of the problem: On the empirical side, we employ rigorous qualitative grounded-theory field research to explore new and unstructured problems, measurement and survey research, design of experiments, and highly quantitative empirical approaches that employ some combinations of big data, data scraping, AI and econometrics to study operational problems. On the analytic side, we deploy research from our operations research toolkit. Oftentimes, SC/OM research embodies both empirical and analytic approaches. Yet, while our doctoral students gain technical competence, they aim to tackle OVC problems that can make a broader difference.