What to expect as an emergent researcher in Management? That was the debate on the challenges of the Ph.D. journey discussed in the online event that has taken place online on 7.10.2021.
This workshop was organized by the team implementing the project Academic Advance: developing the interdisciplinary research excellence capacity of SNSPA in the field of Management [ro. Academic Advance: dezvoltarea capacității de cercetare interdisciplinară de excelență a SNSPA în domeniul Management], being addressed to the students pursuing their studies in Management at the SNSPA Doctoral School.
The meeting had the purpose of drawing a roadmap for the young researchers and was moderated by Professor Elena-Mădălina Vătămănescu, Director of the Management Domain at the SNSPA Doctoral School. The speakers included Professor Florina Pînzaru, Director of the project Academic Advance, and the PhD coordinators affiliated to the Management Doctoral School: Professor Alexandra Zbuchea, Professor Adriana Grigorescu, and Professor Constantin Brătianu.
The main discussion topics regarded the rigours of scientific research, the publishing process, and networking opportunities in the context of academia and research. Doctoral students from all years of study shared relevant experiences and offered insights and suggestions regarding to specific situations concerning time management, attending academic conferences, and writing papers and progress reports to their colleagues.
Professor Pînzaru showed that the members of the doctoral school are internationally recognized authors, overcoming, throughout the years, various barriers in this regard. She motivated the students to aim high, to work hard, to apply for attending international conferences and present their research to colleagues worldwide, and to aim at being published by renowned academic journals. She invited the students to consider attending STRATEGICA, the international conference organized by the Faculty of Management from SNSPA in partnership with the National Bank of Romania and the Management Academic Society from Romania (SAMRO), and insisted on the importance of networking with researchers in the field, and making their work visible to the international researchers’ community.
Professor Zbuchea focused her presentation on the importance of choosing to publish in journals which are relevant to the field of Management, in order to fulfil the doctoral obligations, taking into account the duration of the entire process, from the submission of the first version of the manuscript, through the peer review process and eventual paper reviews, to the acceptance and the actual publishing date. She briefly explained how journal indexing works, what Clarivate Analytics does, what ESCI (Emerging Sources Citation Index) is, and pointed to the fact that there are two relevant databases for the researchers in the field of Management: ERIH+ and Scopus. Two highly useful takeaways of her intervention were a list of the prominent Romanian journals, where doctoral students could send their original research to, and a list of international academic conferences taking place in Romania, which offer publishing opportunities in the conference volumes, as well as in associated journals. As Editor of the journal Management Dynamics in the Knowledge Society (MDKE), an ERIH+ (among many other databases) indexed journal run by a team of specialists from SNSPA, she pointed to the fact that the journal welcomes valuables contributions from doctoral students inviting students to consider it for publication.
Professor Grigorescu explained the dynamics of the relationship between the professor and the doctoral student, underlining that the professor has the role of a `scientific parent` for the student during the years while they prepares their thesis, and that constant communication and periodic consultations are essential. She stressed that the doctoral process is demanding, time-consuming, and, at times, costly. Consequently, she advised the students to plan in advance their doctoral route, and perhaps consider extending the 3 years which are the minimum time frame for the completion of the requirements in order to become a doctor in Management.
Professor Brătianu showed that the SNSPA Doctoral School in Management is one of the best schools in Romania in this field, despite its young age, because the standards that the founding team agreed to abide by are very high. The quality of the School has been recently confirmed by ARACIS, the Romanian Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency, which performed an audit in the summer of 2021. He underlined that these standards are indeed high, and that there are doctoral students who have already been expelled for not having pursued the agreed path. Thus, he advised the doctoral students to read carefully the Guide and the Program structure that they received from the professors, and to ask questions if there are things they do not understand. Professor Brătianu acknowledged that while professional performance is appreciated, the doctoral students are evaluated exclusively based on their research. Becoming a researcher is a difficult and time consuming task, not only because the candidate needs to read, write, and learn a lot, but also because they need to change their mindset, to learn to think as a researcher. He advised students to read and learn the concepts and the various theoretical approaches, to filter the information through a critical lens, and to focus the research scope, bearing in mind that originality is a prerequisite and that choosing to publish with other authors must be a very well thought of decision.
During the second part of the meeting the second and third year students were asked to share the most relevant lessons they had during the program and to offer to the first year students’ advice they would have loved to receive when they started the research endeavour, speaking based on their own perceptions and experiences.
*Summary of the workshop: University Lecturer, Ph.D., Andreea Mitan.
