Beyond the Lab: Is a Business School PhD Right for You? | On-Demand Webinar

Thinking about a PhD in psychology?

Your psychology training may take you further than you think. In this recorded session, Professor Nadav Klein explains why a PhD in organisational behaviour may better fit your research interests. If you have a behavioural science background and are curious about how people judge, decide and work together, this session shows what a PhD in Management adds to the research you already want to do.

Register to receive the session recording. 

This online event is for students and graduates in psychology, behavioural science and related fields who are considering a PhD and want an understanding of a PhD in management for a possible career as an academic in business schools. It is particularly relevant if you are completing, or have completed, a research master's in social and/or behavioural sciences, social psychology, cognitive sciences, statistics in psychology, behavioural economics, or related subject areas.

No business background or MBA is needed, either to attend or to apply.

About the session

Many of the questions psychologists care about, such as how people judge one another, make decisions, cooperate, and communicate, are also central to organisational behaviour (OB). In this session, Professor Nadav Klein will explain what a PhD in Management in OB offers researchers from a psychology background, and how the two paths compare.

What the session will cover: 

• Why pursue an OB PhD vs. a straight psychology/sociology / social science PhD
• How an OB scholar vs. a social scientist  would approach the same research question differently
• Overlap in target journals between fields
• OB as inherently interdisciplinary - treats psychology as raw material rather than a finished discipline to defend, borrowing freely from psych, econ, sociology, and anthropology and letting the best empirical answer win regardless of origin
• A worked example using actual research, showing the psych framing vs. the OB reframing side by side
• Funding and career economics: stipend levels, TA load, and academic job market differences between psych and business-school PhDs
• Myth-busting: no business background or MBA required - most OB PhD cohorts come from psych/econ/sociology  backgrounds
• Interactive segment: attendees will submit a research question in advance; we will live-translate a few into how this would look as an OB dissertation question
• A texture-level look at the actual job - fieldwork and company data partnerships, case-based MBA teaching, practitioner engagement
• Understanding the application:  they require roughly the same materials and test scores as the application to social science PhDs, but with the addition of the GRE exam
• Listing INSEAD OB faculty and their research interests and publications for potential matches