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moomber123 · 2009 June 27th, 08:03 AM

I think my posts elsewhere in this forum might address some of your core questions. But let me just briefly go over the difference between business PhD and econ PhD:

1.) Business academic community is not nearly as coherent a community as econ. In fact, many business professors in the same school do not attend the same conferences, or work together etc. Think of business school more like a microcosm of a university, with people coming from econ, sociology, psychology (three main "parent disciplines") and also from law, political science, etc. Just flip through a typical business academic journal (AMJ, AMR, ASQ, Org Sci) vs. econ academic journal (AER, RAND, econometrica, etc), you will see how econ people have a strong adherence to a partciular "paradigm" whereas business people don't. There is no right or wrong way to conduct academic research in this regard, just what is more appropriate.

Consequently, you will see econ people explicitly demand a lot of math, since that's their paradigm, while business people do not necessarily have a set level to impose on their students. But beware of department specific requirement though. Some business departments have very coherent professors and tend to be very "econ" like (e.g., Chicago, Stanford Business School, etc) So it is not true that going down the management path, you can avoid all the math.

2.) I am reluctant to lump business/management and finance together. Yes, it is true that finance is part of the business academic community, and is worthy of immense respect, but finance is much closer to the econ approach than the business/management approach. There is clearly agreement on the dominant paradigm: rigorous mathematical model, assumption of market efficiency (many management people do not subscribe to the notion that our market is efficient. Many even argue that our market is FAR from being efficient.) So in a sense, there is less room for disagreements in finance and econ department, compared to business/management department. Don't read it negatively. What is traded off for less room for disagreement is higher degree of rigor. It is a trade-off between realism and academic rigor, and is mostly an issue of taste. I am from strategic management, so clearly I don't quite care for the type of pure science like rigor found in econ department. But it also means that people can poke more hole in my assertions.

3.) As far as econ vs. finance is concerned. Since I am not in finance, I can't claim expertise in it. But given my undergraduate in econ from a top 5 US econ department, I can observe that econ departments in US now are moving closer and closer to pure science. A few econ professors in my old department outright renounce capitalism and conduct their economic research much like a pure mathematical discipline. I am not saying that's not worthy, but can you imagine their students going into business school and teaching future MBA? Hardly. Now that is one extreme. Some economics professors are famously "grounded in reality." Think Paul Krugman, with his column in NYTimes. But there is typically a much more abstract, theoretical orientation in modern econ departments.

4.) No ranking in business PhD program will ever satisfy your need. Do you care about prestige? Then only MBA ranking matters. Do you care about your faculty's research output? Then go to UT Dallas' top 100 website and select the journals YOU consider top and do a ranking there, but know that research output does not translate into pedigree necessarily. For example, Illinois is consistently ranked in top 10, if not top 5, in strategy research output. I have yet to see one person in this forum suggesting Illinois is a top strategy department. Their placement records also reflects that. While their professors are super productive, scoring tons of A journals every year, their students don't place quite well. The reasons for this discrepancy are quite complex, and I am not going into it here. You just need to know that no ranking in business PhD can ever be a good guide. Also know that business PhD is highly fragmented. Illinois has a great strategy and OB programs, so if you select only strategy and OB journals, it will be on the very top. Their IS program stinks, and is ranked beyond 100th place so can't be shown on the UT Dallas ranking. Now try to do an average for that. See my point here?

What matters more is the particular discipline you want to pursue, not the overall ranking. And in many cases, what matters the most is WHOM you work with, not which department you work in.

2009 June 27th, 08:03 AM	#6 (permalink)
moomber123 Eager! Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 58	I think my posts elsewhere in this forum might address some of your core questions. But let me just briefly go over the difference between business PhD and econ PhD: 1.) Business academic community is not nearly as coherent a community as econ. In fact, many business professors in the same school do not attend the same conferences, or work together etc. Think of business school more like a microcosm of a university, with people coming from econ, sociology, psychology (three main "parent disciplines") and also from law, political science, etc. Just flip through a typical business academic journal (AMJ, AMR, ASQ, Org Sci) vs. econ academic journal (AER, RAND, econometrica, etc), you will see how econ people have a strong adherence to a partciular "paradigm" whereas business people don't. There is no right or wrong way to conduct academic research in this regard, just what is more appropriate. Consequently, you will see econ people explicitly demand a lot of math, since that's their paradigm, while business people do not necessarily have a set level to impose on their students. But beware of department specific requirement though. Some business departments have very coherent professors and tend to be very "econ" like (e.g., Chicago, Stanford Business School, etc) So it is not true that going down the management path, you can avoid all the math. 2.) I am reluctant to lump business/management and finance together. Yes, it is true that finance is part of the business academic community, and is worthy of immense respect, but finance is much closer to the econ approach than the business/management approach. There is clearly agreement on the dominant paradigm: rigorous mathematical model, assumption of market efficiency (many management people do not subscribe to the notion that our market is efficient. Many even argue that our market is FAR from being efficient.) So in a sense, there is less room for disagreements in finance and econ department, compared to business/management department. Don't read it negatively. What is traded off for less room for disagreement is higher degree of rigor. It is a trade-off between realism and academic rigor, and is mostly an issue of taste. I am from strategic management, so clearly I don't quite care for the type of pure science like rigor found in econ department. But it also means that people can poke more hole in my assertions. 3.) As far as econ vs. finance is concerned. Since I am not in finance, I can't claim expertise in it. But given my undergraduate in econ from a top 5 US econ department, I can observe that econ departments in US now are moving closer and closer to pure science. A few econ professors in my old department outright renounce capitalism and conduct their economic research much like a pure mathematical discipline. I am not saying that's not worthy, but can you imagine their students going into business school and teaching future MBA? Hardly. Now that is one extreme. Some economics professors are famously "grounded in reality." Think Paul Krugman, with his column in NYTimes. But there is typically a much more abstract, theoretical orientation in modern econ departments. 4.) No ranking in business PhD program will ever satisfy your need. Do you care about prestige? Then only MBA ranking matters. Do you care about your faculty's research output? Then go to UT Dallas' top 100 website and select the journals YOU consider top and do a ranking there, but know that research output does not translate into pedigree necessarily. For example, Illinois is consistently ranked in top 10, if not top 5, in strategy research output. I have yet to see one person in this forum suggesting Illinois is a top strategy department. Their placement records also reflects that. While their professors are super productive, scoring tons of A journals every year, their students don't place quite well. The reasons for this discrepancy are quite complex, and I am not going into it here. You just need to know that no ranking in business PhD can ever be a good guide. Also know that business PhD is highly fragmented. Illinois has a great strategy and OB programs, so if you select only strategy and OB journals, it will be on the very top. Their IS program stinks, and is ranked beyond 100th place so can't be shown on the UT Dallas ranking. Now try to do an average for that. See my point here? What matters more is the particular discipline you want to pursue, not the overall ranking. And in many cases, what matters the most is WHOM you work with, not which department you work in.