Management, Organizations, & Sociology
Students in this joint program offered by our Management & Organizations Department and Northwestern University's Sociology Department are interested in topics that bridge management strategy and economic sociology, such as social movements, the production of culture, entrepreneurship, social networks, gender and race inequality in organizations, and globalization.
Our philosophy is that intellectual and research interests come first and that research methods should be tailored to fit research questions. Within this research framework, our program is designed to bring together those students who want a disciplinary base in sociology while focusing their research on organizations and their environments. As a student in the program, you become actively involved in research during your first year of study. The Management & Organizations & Sociology program develops your theoretical knowledge and methodological skills for careers as successful and productive researchers within a business school or sociology department.
Active research areas
MORS faculty
Big data, corporate governance, computational social science, decision-making, dispute resolution, diversity, group behavior, motivation, organizational change, organizational design, negotiations, social networks, strategic adaptation and change, and social responsibility.
Sociology faculty
Culture; law, economy, and organizations; social inequality; and comparative-historical sociology.
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Faculty from MORS and Sociology actively participate in the joint program, ensuring that this program functions collaboratively and that you have easy access to faculty mentors and dissertation advisors from both departments.
The MORS faculty includes scholars whose research expertise draws from management and organizational behavior, strategy, industrial and organizational psychology, social psychology, sociology, and physics. Our research covers a broad range of areas that include negotiations, computational social science, conflict resolution, individual and organizational decision-making, social networks, and power. We have published scholarly articles in, and serve on the editorial boards of leading journals, such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, American Journal of Sociology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Science, Science, Management Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Nature, and the Annual Review of Psychology.
The Sociology faculty study the relationships among people, such as organizations, groups and countries, with an emphasis on how those relationships cause inequalities within legal/economic systems, social movements, and organizations. Our department provides comprehensive training in methodology and has faculty who cover a wide range of social science research methods. We take pride in our methodological pluralism, and we celebrate both mixed-methods approaches and research that is firmly and rigorously grounded in a single method. We have published scholarly articles in, and serve on the editorial boards of leading journals, such as the American Journal of Sociology, American Political Science Review, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Social Science & Medicine.
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Coursework
In the first two years of the program you are expected to complete the required coursework of the program. You take required courses in sociology, management and organizations, and related fields and you must maintain a 3.0 (“B”) average in coursework.
Preliminary exam
You will take your preliminary (“field”) exam in the summer between your first and second years. The prelim exam covers material in the four substantive Management and Organizations Ph.D. core courses. Prelims also require full competence in the material covered in the two core methods classes.
Paper requirement and candidacy
You must successfully complete a MORS candidacy paper by the end of winter quarter of your third year. You also complete the Sociology department's special field paper. Upon successful passing of both papers, passing of the MORS prelim exam and maintaining a 3.0 GPA in coursework, you are admitted to candidacy.
Research, proposal and dissertation
The main activity in your third year and afterward is research toward a thesis, under the direction of one or more faculty advisors from MORS and Sociology. A thesis proposal must be presented by the end of the spring quarter of their fourth year. In your final year in the program, you must complete a dissertation demonstrating original and significant research and pass a final oral examination on the dissertation.
Teaching requirement
To promote engagement with faculty and integration with the intellectual life of the department, students serve as research and teaching assistants during years two, three, and four, including summers. Research assistantships (RAs) are an excellent lead-in to research; teaching assistantships (TAs) prepare you for teaching after obtaining your Ph.D.
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Our doctoral students come from a variety of backgrounds, including some with work and professional experience, recent MBA graduates, and others who enter directly from undergraduate programs in the social sciences, business, engineering, and allied fields. Though not required, successful applicants often possess one or several of the following characteristics:
- Experience in the social sciences, e.g. through undergraduate or graduate coursework in anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology or related fields.
- Research experience, e.g. in the form of an honors or master’s thesis, or research assistant work.
- Postbaccalaureate work experience.
- Evidence of quantitative or statistical skills e.g., high quantitative test scores or advanced courses in mathematics, statistics, engineering or econometrics.
- Relevant master’s degree.