Ph.D.'s In Business - Why Should We Care?
There is a growing shortage of business Ph.D.’s that will affect academia as well as corporations and think-tanks in the years to come.
Ph.D.'s In Business—Why Should We Care?
Judy Olian
(Judy Olian is dean of Penn State's Smeal College of Business and host of "About Business," a monthly call-in show airing at 7 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month on WPSX-TV, WPSU-FM, and at www.wpsx.org.)
Want a job? Consider going into business, more precisely, into a business Ph.D. program. There's a growing shortage of business Ph.D.'s that will affect academia as well as corporations and think-tanks. In a 5 year period, the number of business Ph.D.'s graduated by the largest accredited doctoral programs in the U.S. fell by 18 percent.
Contrast that with, say, faculty in English or History. In those fields, departmental mailboxes bulge with applications from highly qualified and prolific candidates. Production of Ph.D.'s in the humanities grew by 19 percent in the 90's according to the National Science Foundation.
How bad is the problem? In 2001, US business schools sought to fill 2000 doctoral vacancies, and about 260 remained unfilled. By 2006, about 1,000 Ph.D. vacancies will remain open, with shortages growing exponentially over time. These figures capture demand only in academic business schools. Excluded from these numbers are industry vacancies for business Ph.D.s, as well as exploding demand among non-U.S. schools that use the same pool of Ph.D. graduates to fill their vacancies. In a report I chaired for the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International, we predicted a shortage of about 2,500 Ph.D. candidates just in the U.S. over the next 10 years, on a base of about 26,000 doctoral faculty in business.
With fierce competition for scarce business Ph.D. talent, salaries are sky rocketing. As dean of a business school I won't admit publicly to the starting salaries, but let's just say that they're very attractive to the job seeker.
Should we care that Ph.D. trained business talent is in such short supply? Would there be fewer cures for disease, scientific advances, or rocket science breakthroughs if we didn't teach business or conduct business research?
Perhaps the essential reason to be concerned about the dwindling Ph.D. pipeline in business is that we need these well trained researchers to continue to stretch our frameworks and models of business practices, and to educate future generations of business leaders. So yes, there might be fewer rocket science breakthroughs if the leaders are ill equipped to manage the scientific process. And there won't be as many educated thinkers to catch emerging business problems, probe fundamental questions about profit drivers, or craft solutions in areas like operations research, accounting, finance, strategy, and marketing.
Corporate America will also feel the pain. Financial institutions deploy whiz modelers to develop new products and strategies in increasingly complex global markets. Airlines use sophisticated operations researchers and supply chain experts to improve their routing and load models. Consumer product manufacturers rely on market researchers to help target their next great product launch, or track consumer reactions. These experts are typically Ph.D. trained business researchers.
No big deal, you say, there are lots of senior executives who would love to teach business or lend their expertise. True, and they bring many advantages. However, Ph.D. training provides a disciplined grounding in the analytical frameworks underlying business issues, and the principles of the scientific method to address problems and offer solutions through objective, dispassionate analysis. It's tempting to mistake casual observation or the latest fad for business fact. They aren't. And that's an important reason for the rigor of Ph.D. training.
In addition, business faculty have honed their craft and perfected the most effective methodologies for teaching business. Missing from the educational experience of students flocking to business schools will be that rigor and craft. It will hurt the Whartons of the world as much as the Wal Marts.
So what's the solution? Better funding of business research and doctoral programs. Most other Ph.D. programs are funded by government agencies awarding grants that stimulate scientific research, and provide Ph.D. program funding. That's true of the health sciences, engineering, information, social or basic sciences. It's not true of business because it was assumed that industry would support business research. It doesn't, nor does the federal government. That hampers scholarly advances in business, and the development of a pipeline of Ph.D. scholars into business.
There are also other solutions. Business schools need to enlarge the pipeline of qualified candidates by doing a better job of conveying the excitement and opportunities of a Ph.D. career to potential candidates. They might also facilitate opportunities for Ph.D. career changers from related fields where there are far fewer employment options.
With the image of business institutions in crisis, it's ever more crucial to assure intellectually grounded training of young entrants into business professions, and the continued vitality of thought leadership about practice. That won't happen unless there's a rich pipeline of business scholars. That's why we should care about business Ph.D.'s.
REPORTERS & EDITORS: For more information, please contact Wyatt DuBois in the Smeal College of Business Media Relations Office at 814-863-3798 or wed112@psu.edu.
Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.
