EDAMBA Annual Meeting

 

This year the main theme is 'Operating Doctoral Programmes in the Service of Society: Critical Transitions and the Future’.

The current world order is inevitably changing. Since the onset of the COVID-2019 pandemic, it has become evident that this process is very challenging for the economy and society. As the European Association of Doctoral Programmes in Management/Business Administration, we aim at building an inclusive, peaceful, open, and diverse knowledge society. Our community of doctoral programmes continues to address the topics of global health in a post-pandemic landscape, the rise of AI and surveillance capitalism, the climate emergency and disruption of global supply chains, amongst others. That said, in the face of the current historically unprecedent challenges, preparation of highly qualified doctoral candidates and doctors of science requires developing their ability to create new approaches to address these challenges.

 

One of the key tasks is to support motivation and entrepreneurial spirit of potential doctoral students to engage in the new research projects in the current times. Nowadays, even more so than ever, more studies are needed to create new working concepts and theories in the constantly and oftentimes unpredictably changing environment. Doctoral students should be well-prepared to be able to find new approaches to counteract constant challenges. This requires the development of transferrable skills such as holistic thinking but also the ability to maintain research integrity, even if some research projects are so novel that they appear to be out of the mainstream.

 

Obtaining a doctoral degree means not only entering the world of academia but also opens ample opportunities to do research for policy makers, create social impact through research, and collaborate with practitioners in an array of organisational settings in Europe and worldwide, to mention a few potential pathways.