Text Box: Dr. Lois S. Peters
Text Box: Contact Information: Mail: Dr. Lois S. Peters Telephone : (518)276-2977 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 110 Eighth St. FAX: (518)276-2665 Pittsburgh Bldg., Rm. 3214 Troy, NY 12180 Email: peterl@rpi.edu
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

*  www.rpi.edu                               * www.mgmt.rpi.edu/ieee/      

     * Radical Innovation                        *   IAMOT

* Centre McMaster University

Text Box: Purpose: The doctoral program of the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer educates high quality students for contributing to scholarship in areas related to management and technology including: entrepreneurship, new product development, financial technology and engineering, environmental management, management of technical innovation and technology and international business. We primarily prepare students for academic positions in the best colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. The program is designed to meet the individual needs of its students and places emphasis on close working relationships with the faculty.
 

 

 

 


     

 

 

 

 

Text Box: Objectives: There are three major objectives of the Management doctoral program: 1. Preparation of candidates to excel in research that relates to management and technology. 2. Preparation of candidates for the responsibilities and opportunities for careers in research and teaching or for positions requiring similar creative and analytical skills including being able to direct research being done by others. 3. Preparation of students for successful scholarly communication through teaching and writing. 4.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: Scope: The program emphasizes building an in-depth understanding and appreciation of research processes and skills required for scholarship in management and technology, as well as gaining deep understanding of the relevant theoretical and empirical literature in the student’s selected area of concentration. Doctoral students are encouraged to conduct research on challenging real world problems. These objectives are accomplished in a number of ways – formal course work, independent study and reading, formal assignments as research and/or teaching assistants, student-faculty initiated research and dissertation research. There are also activities designed to broaden development, such as seminars presented by prospective faculty members, current faculty, visiting faculty or executives, participation in academic conferences, and meetings with business practitioners. In addition, there is the opportunity to participate in a journal club where current articles are informally critiqued. Several social events are held throughout the year to encourage cooperative activity among Ph.D. students and to build social and information networks that will be helpful in the future for assisting in job searches and developing research programs.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: Program Structure, Design, and Requirements: The doctoral program is designed to provide both structure and individual choice. It is based on a series of tracks that assure progress towards degree completion. Since we feel that a cohesive group can offer support and guidance to each other, the program is designed with the assumption of a critical size cohort entering each year that progresses more or less together through the program. Ninety credits are required to complete the doctoral degree. Thirty to forty-five of the ninety credits can be applied from a Masters or MBA degree. Discussion of entrance processes, program size, and characteristics of students are contained in the following sections. Our discussion of program structure is based on a student entering with a masters degree (an MBA is preferable but not necessary) and receiving financial aid in the form of an assistantship which carries with it the responsibility of 20 hours per week of work. This assistantship also imposes a maximum course load of 3 courses per semester. Students not requiring financial assistance, who receive scholarships or are in situations where financial aid is not available, can take 4 courses per semester and hence their program could be completed sooner than the structure described below. Because of our interdisciplinary emphasis on management and technology, the typical doctoral program duration is more than three years. We sketch out the program below in three years because students receiving financial aid at the beginning of their studies normally are only provided with three years funding. Year two is the year most appropriately drawn out into two years. Students are reviewed yearly to make sure they are making timely progress. Students needing to take a leave of absence or draw out their program longer than four years must inform the doctoral director in writing. In the three-year doctoral program, year one consists of fulfilling breadth requirements and preparation for conducting research, year two consists of area oriented course work, and year three consists of dissertation research. A student with a previous MBA from an AACSB accredited institution within seven years of applying to the Management doctoral program and able to take courses in the summer, can consider the three-year program. Additional courses, particularly background or breadth courses, would be required of students coming without an MBA. Year 1 (or Stage 1) The first year consists of a tutorial designed to familiarize the student with recent literature in their chosen field of study, a semester of research design and methodology, two semesters of advanced statistics and two semesters of courses as decided upon by your advisor. During this first year a plan of study is developed, delineating the courses needed to be taken over the course of the student’s doctoral program. This plan of study is designed in conjunction with the student’s faculty advisor, in accordance with Institute and Management Doctoral Program policies. Summer Year 1 One or two courses are taken as indicated in the plan of study. Students should begin to identify their thesis research question and methodology. Students are encouraged to begin to prepare a paper for submission to a journal or conference. Ideally this will have been initiated as a partial fulfillment of the required research methods courses. Year 2 (or Stages 2 and 3) Year 2 consists of two semesters of three courses each as indicated on the plan of study. One of these courses must be an advanced research design methodology course. Others can be independent study. Given that most students in the program choose courses of study that combine traditional fields of study (for example, Information Systems and Finance), year 2 can be utilized to gain an understanding of the various literatures that define the specific area the student has defined. By the second semester of year 2, students with the help of their thesis advisor should have assembled a field committee (of at least three members) that will administer the field exam as well as supervise the thesis. The final doctoral dissertation committee usually includes field committee members and must include, at a minimum, four tenure-line RPI faculty. Evaluation: The end of year 2 culminates in a field examination. The form of the field examination is not fixed and is, to some extent at the discretion of the student’s field committee, intended to ascertain how well the student understands the field that he or she picked as a focus. A Field Exam committee has oversight on this process. Summer Year 2 One course is taken as indicated on the plan of study. Students are encouraged to continue to prepare papers for submission to a journal or conference. At this time we also advocate participation in doctoral consortiums. Evaluation: At the end of the year 2 summer, a Candidacy Exam is given which is a defense of the dissertation proposal. This is an oral exam given by the student’s dissertation committee. Note: A student taking more than three years to complete the program can take the field exam during the second year and the Candidacy Exam during the third year. Year 3 (or Stage 4) Year 3 is concerned with completing the dissertation and culminates with a thesis defense, which is done either at the end of the year 3 second semester or in the summer of year 3. Students must provide an abstract of their thesis and a draft copy to the doctoral director at least two weeks before their defense. The Doctoral Director will post the date and place of the thesis defense and the thesis abstract, as well as make the full thesis available in the doctoral office for all those interested.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: Application Process: New students are generally admitted for the fall semester due to the cohort support approach embedded in the program. It is anticipated that a maximum of 8 students a year will be admitted. Since the application asks for the student to indicate a major area, the faculty in the prospective student’s designated area will review the application. The purpose of this is to assure that each student is underwritten by an area prior to admission. In this way, each student has a support system in place among the faculty when arriving. An application with support from the areas defines the pool of prospective admissions. The doctoral committee then selects from this pool of admissible applicants, a subset that is balanced among areas and focus. Decisions pertaining to financial aid are also made at this time. Either GMATs or GREs are required for admission. Grade point averages of 3.3 (based on a scale of 4) or higher are desirable. In our admissions process, we consider student research interests, experience and match with available faculty as well as past academic performance.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: Financial Aid: Only those extraordinarily well qualified can expect to receive financial aid for three years. Aid is extremely competitive. Normally we admit students without aid and if they demonstrate high motivation and capability during the first year we try to provide aid for completion of the program.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: Student Body Composition: Prospective students with work experience, unique backgrounds or skills are encouraged to apply. We feel a strength of our program is designing interdisciplinary programs to fit particular interests or research problems. Our student body comprises a wide variety of academic background and experience. About 43% of our doctoral candidates are international students.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: Advising / Mentoring: This program, by necessity, requires a strong working relationship between the student and faculty in the area(s) the student chooses. This means that faculty take an active role in shaping the student’s program and monitoring process. The side benefit of these activities is that the field faculty advisor becomes more of a mentor and developer of the student, and is actively involved in the student’s progress and development. We are a relatively small faculty and student body, which works best when there is teamwork among all parties.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text Box: Teaching: There is an increasing emphasis placed upon teaching skills at all Universities and Colleges, and teaching is emphasized in recent publications of the AACSB. For these reasons, and because high standards of teaching at Rensselaer are part of our culture, there are many opportunities for students to learn and develop their teaching skills. Students are encouraged to attend teaching improvement workshops, seminars and to participate in academic skill building exercises. Rensselaer has a teaching improvement center on campus and has a variety of materials and people available to help develop and improve teaching.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: Career Socialization: Career socialization has to do with the process of understanding what it means to be a successful academic. In order to accomplish this, we support students going to academic conferences, attending doctoral consortia generally held before academic conferences, and writing papers with faculty. However, the most important aspect of this process is the mentoring relationship that evolves with one’s dissertation committee. Thus, by participating in professional meetings, by writing and presenting papers, and by interacting with one’s dissertation advisor and committee, a student is provided information, experience and models as education for academic career success.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Text Box: Why is the RPI Lally School of Management & Technology PH.D. Program Different? 1. Recognition of leadership in the frontier area of the interface between technology and management through the recent Lally endowment to the school. 2. Breadth and scope of the doctoral student body resulting in a global network of RPI Ph.D. graduates. 3. Excellence in innovative teaching as recognized by the recent Pugh award. 4. Innovation in curriculum delivery as evidenced by recent awards in distance learning and interactive delivery. 5. The advanced information infrastructure of RPI is available to all Lally School of Management and Technology doctoral students. 6. RPI has initiated numerous programs for those committed to creation of value through application of science and engineering knowledge including: · The Incubator Center · The Technology Park · Research Centers in Manufacturing, Electronics, Financial Technology, Entrepreneurship, Design, Information, Services · Studies in Science and Technology Policy · Journal of Business Venturing · Sloan Radical Innovation Study · IEEE Management Conference 1998 – Puerto Rico: Pioneering Technologies for the Third Millennium: Management Issues and Challenges
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

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Purpose

Objectives

Scope

Program Structure, Design, and Requirements

Application Process

Financial Aid

Student Body Composition

Advising/Mentoring

Teaching

Career Socialization

Why we're different