Organizations and Management
Upon admission, each student will be assigned to a faculty advisor who will help the student to design an individualized program that prepares the student well for doing research in his or her area of interest.
Students in the Ph.D. program in Organizations and Management at Yale must satisfy five requirements: (i) 14 courses, (ii) seminar and workshop participation, (iii) a first-year paper, (iv) a qualifying exam, and (v) a dissertation (usually consisting of three journal-quality papers). Students must also comply with all other rules of the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and of the Yale SOM Doctoral program. On average, students will need five years to complete these requirements.
Courses
All students must complete 14 courses: two required core courses, two methods courses, five depth courses, two social science courses, one breadth course and two electives.
Required Core Courses
All students in the Yale SOM doctoral program must complete Microeconomics (ECON 500) and Policy Modeling (MGMT 611). With the approval of his or her advisor, a student may also substitute MGMT 611 with Mathematical Models for Management (MGMT 710).
Methods Courses
Students in the Organizations and Management program fulfill their methods requirement with Econometrics I (ECON 550) and Econometrics II (ECON 551). Under unusual circumstances and with the approval of both the advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies, students may fulfill one or both of the methods course requirements with alternative offerings.
Depth Courses
The heart of the Yale Organizations and Management program consists of a unique set of research methods and theory courses: Organizations and Management I & II, Empirical Research Methods and Theory Construction.
- Organizations and Management I: Inside Organizations. This course, taught every other year, will review economic, psychological and sociological perspectives on the internal behavior of organizations. Sessions will generally be organized around phenomena and jointly taught by two instructors from different perspectives.
- Organizations and Management II: Organizations and the Environment. This course, offered every other year, will review economic, psychological and sociological perspectives of how organizations interact with one another. Sessions will generally be organized around phenomena and jointly taught by two instructors from different perspectives.
- Theory Construction: Researchers in organizational behavior generally build their models in words (rather than with math). This course, offered every other year, focuses on how to build an internally consistent argument, and how to critique the logic of others’ arguments.
- Empirical Research Methods: This course, taught every other year, reviews a number of topics critical to empirical research in the social sciences: data sources, the reliability and validity of measures, experimental and quasi-experimental design, etc.
- PSYC 518: Data Analysis This course introduces students to the design and analysis of experiments.
Social Science Courses
In their second year, students choose either psychology or sociology as their primary discipline. Examples of courses that students might choose include (see the course catalog for additional options):
- PSYC 505: Stereotyping and prejudice
- PSYC 509: Social cognition
- PSYC 557: Social psychology and relationships
- PSYC 621: Cognitive science of pleasure
- SOC 511: Building social theory for empirical analysis
- SOC 544: Social movements
- SOC 625: Analysis of social structure
- SOC 633: Economic sociology
Breadth and Elective Courses
All students are also expected to take at least one course outside of their area of study and at least two additional elective courses. Students choose these courses in consultation with their advisor and the Director of Graduate Studies.
Seminars and Workshops
Organizations and Management Seminar
Every other week, the area invites world- class scholars to present their research to the Yale faculty and students. Doctoral students are expected to attend these seminars in every term of the program. Prior to the seminar, students will meet with one of the faculty members to discuss the paper being presented. Beginning in their third year, students are also expected to present in the seminar once per year.
MEaN (Markets, Enterprises and Networks) Workshop
Jointly taught by the Or- ganizations and Management faculty doing research with large-scale (usually archival) data sets, these meetings, held every other week, will provide a venue for the discussion of study design, econometrics, the interpretation of research results, the crafting of papers, as well as for the discussion of important published research. Students should attend one workshop, either MEaN or MODE, in each term of the program. Students are encouraged to attend both or switch between them so that they have exposure to the full faculty.
MODE (Micro-Organizational behavior, Decisions and Experiments) Workshop
Jointly taught by the Organizations and Management faculty doing research using experiments (both in the lab and in the field), these meetings, held every other week, will provide a venue for the discussion of experimental design, the interpretation of research results, the crafting of papers, as well as for the discussion of important published research.
First-year Paper
In the summer between the first and second years of the program, each student should collaborate on a research paper together with two faculty members—one with an experimental and the other with an observational orientation. The idea for this paper may originate with either the student or the faculty members. In either case, an initial draft of the paper should be completed by the fall of the second year. Students will present these co-authored papers in the PhD Student Research Workshop in the fall of the second year. Generally, these papers will be submitted to journals and will result in publications prior to the end of the program.
Second Year Paper/Qualifying Exam
In the second year of the program, each student should pursue an original research paper under the supervision of a faculty member. An initial draft of these papers, which will become the first chapter (paper) in the dissertation, should be submitted to the faculty by November 1 of the third year. Students will present these papers in both the PhD Student Research Workshop and the Organizations and Management Seminar in the fall or winter of the third year.
Dissertation
Admission to candidacy: Once students have completed their coursework, first-year paper and qualifying exam, they may apply for admission to candidacy. As part of this application, students must submit a proposal for their planned dissertation. Admission to candidacy depends on a comprehensive review of the student’s performance by the faculty; completion of the requirements listed above does not guarantee admission. Students must be admitted to candidacy prior to their fourth year in the program.
By the fall of year four, students should propose ideas for the second and third chapters of their dissertation and form a four-person dissertation committee to advise this research. Admission to candidacy will depend on approval of this proposed plan of study as well as a comprehensive review of the students progress on the elements detailed above. Students will generally present progress on these papers in the PhD Student Research Workshop on an annual basis.