Yeah, I don't recognize urban autoethnographies as a valid form of scientific inquiry.^ I have a hunch that you and I have very different understanding of what constitutes good research.
How to prepare for a business school job?
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^ I have a hunch that you and I have very different understanding of what constitutes good research.
Yeah, I don't recognize urban autoethnographies as a valid form of scientific inquiry.Why can't you use something better than a smug strawman to defend a perfectly reasonable point?
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f9c1 here. I don't know how you can argue against the idea that actual work experience in the business world is helpful for doing good research on business. It is not sufficient, and we can debate if it is necessary. But to say it is wrong means you think it is not helpful, which makes no sense.
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There are no sociology oriented jobs. Your best bet is to market yourself as either an OB/HR scholar or a strategic management scholar. Entrepreneurship falls under the strategy umbrella.Where do you even find b-school listings for jobs that are sociology-oriented and not management or econ/finance?
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Where do you even find b-school listings for jobs that are sociology-oriented and not management or econ/finance?
There are no sociology oriented jobs. Your best bet is to market yourself as either an OB/HR scholar or a strategic management scholar. Entrepreneurship falls under the strategy umbrella.There are sociology-oriented research networks. What those people do may or may not fall squarely within HRM, OB, strategy or strategic management. All these three labels (except maybe the first one) are overlapping, fuzzy, and more or less meaningless.
f9c1 here. I don't know how you can argue against the idea that actual work experience in the business world is helpful for doing good research on business. It is not sufficient, and we can debate if it is necessary. But to say it is wrong means you think it is not helpful, which makes no sense.
Business experience won't get you a TT job and won't get you tenured. This is not 1978 anymore and you can't publish in academic journals what you discovered during your time in the business world.
However:
- it's a nice thing to have once you're on the job: it helps building rapport with students, getting fresh data and market yourself to the business world (ie your clients and sources of funding)
- business knowledge will help you identify research questions that have relevance beyond the academic world and aren't just the nth repackaging of the same question. It means more citations and better odds of landing a top pub with less efforts
- some business jobs will teach you how to use data and build hypotheses, which isn't completely useless if you've never done research -
Business Ph.D.s are very hard to hire because they get better offers in industry. Accounting Ph.D.s are the hardest of all, probably harder than CS. The business program at my place loses hires over the summer because they get better offers. So if you go in with the idea that you actually want an academic career and that you know you are going to take a salary hit for it that because you love doing research and teaching, then go for it. If you plan your whole Ph.D. career with the goal of getting a job at a top 10 b-school that's no different than a middle school kid thinking they are going to get to the NBA. Most faculty teach outside of R1 schools not to mention outside of top 10 schools. So if you picture yourself on the job market don't forget that you will be applying all over the map, no matter what. If you really want to be a sociologist you will not get a job in a sociology department without a sociology Ph.D. If you want to be in a business department you should do the appropriate degree for that. Remember too that you have to think about your path to tenure, which means you must publish in a way that will both make your department happy and make whatever external reviewers they get happy. If they are HR faculty you will need to fit with their ideas of good publications. Also yes indeed they do use that standard list of journals.
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So right!Business Ph.D.s are very hard to hire because they get better offers in industry. Accounting Ph.D.s are the hardest of all, probably harder than CS. The business program at my place loses hires over the summer because they get better offers. So if you go in with the idea that you actually want an academic career and that you know you are going to take a salary hit for it that because you love doing research and teaching, then go for it. If you plan your whole Ph.D. career with the goal of getting a job at a top 10 b-school that's no different than a middle school kid thinking they are going to get to the NBA. Most faculty teach outside of R1 schools not to mention outside of top 10 schools. So if you picture yourself on the job market don't forget that you will be applying all over the map, no matter what. If you really want to be a sociologist you will not get a job in a sociology department without a sociology Ph.D. If you want to be in a business department you should do the appropriate degree for that. Remember too that you have to think about your path to tenure, which means you must publish in a way that will both make your department happy and make whatever external reviewers they get happy. If they are HR faculty you will need to fit with their ideas of good publications. Also yes indeed they do use that standard list of journals.
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I am an AP at a business school who made the transition from sociology to management (OB). The transition was not easy. Here's 3 main things I learned.
1. Different academic hierarchies
I "discovered" management academics have their own journal hierarchies and preferences that they obsess over and disregard all but the top sociology journals (for example, nobody has heard of Social Forces). I therefore had to target more interdisciplinary field type journals - not necessarily a bad thing.
2. Management research is surprisingly scholarly (in a bad way)
A big surprise for me was that I found management to be a weirdly waaaaaay more scholarly than sociology (yes I know - it is possible!). Most "top" management (OB) research is surprisingly obscure (open up any AMJ and see), overly theoretical, with poor quality data and methods. It came as no surprise to me that these days none of it seems to replicate these days.
3. Turn your differences into a strength
I had a much better methods training than 99.9% of OB researchers. High quality methods training is actually an underappreciated strength of top sociology departments. So I now boss all the methods courses in my business school.
Given the sociological focus of my research, I am regularly quoted in newspapers, advise policy, do a ton of contract work, etc. It's very hard for management researchers to get that kind of recognition given their research is surprisingly irrelevant to the real world.
TL;DR It is possible to bring something genuinely different and valuable with a sociology training to business schools. In return, you get paid more!
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OP here, thank you, aaac,hat's very useful! What do you think about the competitiveness of b-school PhD admissions versus soc? Is it easier to get into a top b-school program than a top soc program (soc undergrad, flagship state school, a few years of applied sociology research experience with 1-2 low-tier pubs)?
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OP here, thank you, aaac,hat's very useful! What do you think about the competitiveness of b-school PhD admissions versus soc? Is it easier to get into a top b-school program than a top soc program (soc undergrad, flagship state school, a few years of applied sociology research experience with 1-2 low-tier pubs)?
BS often have smaller more selective programs. On balance, probably slightly harder than a top soc program - partly because business is more diverse. Whichever way you decide to go, put out feelers before you apply to potential advisors.
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BS often have smaller more selective programs. On balance, probably slightly harder than a top soc program - partly because business is more diverse. Whichever way you decide to go, put out feelers before you apply to potential advisors.
It's not a perfect comparison (data is scarce...) but:
- Northwestern's sociology dept admitted 30 people out of 285 applicants;
- Kellogg's entire cohort of 25 (anything from finance to marketing) was selected out of 675. I'm pretty sure their yield rate isn't nearly low enough to offset the difference in % admitted.You'll need to prove me that Kellogg applicants are worst than sociology prospies.
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Other data point, this time comparing two departments of similar standing:
- Harvard's soc dept has cohorts 8-10, so probably 15-20 people admitted out of 250-300. >6% admission rate.
- HBS phd program has a 4% admission rate.Once you factor in the fact that HBS is relatively stronger in disciplines that attract sociologists (strategy, OB, etc) and relatively worse in many others (marketing, accounting, etc), you get the idea.
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JBV, ET&P, JMS don’t count at HRM
Org Sci counts much more than AMJ SMJ
Check out CVs of Stanford MIT bschool sociologists
Program wise, your best bet is programs that have had B-school placements in the past (Chicago, Stanford, etc).
Topic wise, your best bet is either OMT (Org and Mgmt Theory), or Entrepreneurship.
Publication wise, if you get any publication out from any of these: SMJ, AMJ, ASQ, JBV, ET&P, JMS, that would be really helpful.