Top PhD in Strategy / International Business?

[mikebike]

Hi there,

I am a European student with the following characteristics:

-Undergrad in Business Admin (Top 10%)
-US Exchange Term (GPA 3.9/4)
-MSc International Management at LSE/Duke
-Havent taken GRE yet: GMAT math section was about 90% (which would equal about 780 in GRE math, right!?)

I would like to attend a PhD Programme in the US or UK focusing on strategy or international business.

What schools would you suggest? They should provide tuition and scholarship to a large extent if possible and have good job prospects.

Thanks for your help!

mikebike

[Bloomsbury]

Where did you get your undergrad ?
Do you have research experience ?
Which topics are you interested in ?

[mikebike]

hi,
the undergrad degree is from a top 3 university in the german speaking area.
unfortunately, i do not have research experience besides my thesis and other research assignments as part of the regular course. it is very uncommon to be involved in such issues at my university. might this be a problem? how can I compensate that?
my research interests are in strategic management subjects such as corporate strategy, resource-based view, industrial organization,...
does that help?
thanks!!!

[Bloomsbury]

I think you have a good curriculum.
Thesis is research experience, you should stress that. Your lack of research experience might hurt, but not much if you highlight your papers.
You don't need to pass the GRE, GMAT should be enough.
I think you should aim the top level programs. LBS might be hard to reach but you can try. In the US you should pick a few big names and top 50 schools.

[MagicNo.]

As Bllomsbury said try some top ones. This is what comes to my mind right away with strategy focus: College Park, Stern, UCLA, Fuqua, Chaple Hill, Wharton, Chicago's Booth.

[moomber123]

As Bllomsbury said try some top ones. This is what comes to my mind right away with strategy focus: College Park, Stern, UCLA, Fuqua, Chaple Hill, Wharton, Chicago's Booth.

I found this list a bit odd. There is a big distinction between a top MBA program that has a strong strategy focus vs. a good research program that places their graduates well in the strategy field.

I agree with Fuqua, probably the best strategy PhD program now IMHO, and Wharton, but none of the other you listed are particularly well known for top strategy people now. UCLA used to be a top strategy place, but their "star" strategy people are all very senior and aren't operating at the volume they used to. Have not seen any UCLA articles in top strategy journals for quite sometime now. (If UCLA is included for people like Rumelt, then why not Berkeley? They've got Williamson and Teece. But just like UCLA, I believe they are also quite senior and probably aren't as active as they used to be.)

Chicago's inclusion seems particularly inappropriate for strategy. Make no mistake, Chicago's PhD program is by no means anything less than ideal, but their approach appeals much more to the "parent disciplines" like economics. I am not aware of ANY strategy researcher coming out of Chicago or currently at Chicago. (The strategy research literature does cite a lot of Chicago scholars, but only in the sense that electrical engineering literature cites a lot of fundamental physics literature). Unless your recommendation is to go to Chicago and become a pure economist / sociologist who then venture into the "applied" field of strategy (not the best approach IMHO), I would not consider it a good advice at all. I suspect, again, your recommendation is based on the MBA reputation more than anything else. In which case, of course Chicago is a top place.

I will include Michigan and Toronto, and Harvard with a warning sign (that their style is very different from the rest of the strategy field, and has a pretty big reputation for inbreeding. that could be good or bad depending on what you prefer). Purdue is sometimes mentioned because the founding editor of SMJ is there, but I personally would not place it as a top program.