Management - PhD

This field concerns the understanding of organizations and their management. It encompasses the two broad literatures of macro organizational theory (also simply called organizational theory) and micro organizational theory (also called organizational behavior), including the sub-fields related to public service management: public administration/public management, nonprofit management, and health management. The organizations and management field concerns knowledge about people, systems, processes, structures, and cultures within organizations, the interconnections between organizations and their environments, as well as their management. It grew out of psychology, sociology, economics, and political science and continues to be influenced by those literatures as well as anthropology, law, history, and others.

The activities and requirements for this field will prepare Ph.D. students for research and teaching in the broad area of organizations and management. A concentration in this field will familiarize students with three broad, related categories of study: a) theoretical approaches; b) significant themes, issues and problems faced by organizations; and c) appropriate methods of inquiry. Students concentrating in this field should have the ability to:

• Discuss the role and importance of theory, both in the context of public service management, across sectors, and in the context of social science in general.
• Identify, describe, and assess the soundness of a variety of theoretical perspectives in the organization and management field, and place them within some coherent classification scheme that provides a conceptual map of the terrain.
• Apply the existing theoretical perspectives to the identification, analysis, and understanding of critical themes, issues, and problems in the field.
• Create or extend a theory about organizational or managerial phenomena when engaging in research and teaching in the area.
• Make theories operational by identifying variables, constructs, and relationships as well as inquiry strategies and methods that guide empirical research on organizational and managerial phenomena.