Fully funded PhD positions at the University of Zurich (for students with a Masters degree)

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The Department of Business Administration at the University of Zurich is inviting applications for positions for a newly forming research center dedicated to studying the future of work and the future of leadership, broadly defined as research areas that concern how new technological and ideological developments will shape the way people work. The center is led by the Chair of Human Resource Management and Leadership, Prof. Dr. Jochen Menges.

We are currently offering

PhD opportunities (fully funded and including employment as a research associate)

Your primary tasks are…

• to conduct research and publish in top-tier journals in areas of organizational behavior and/or human resource management, with a special focus on the future of work and/or the future of leadership

• to assist with the development and delivery of organizational behavior, human resource management and/or general management courses on the future of work and/or the future of leadership, for undergraduate, graduate and/or executive participants

• to provide supervision for undergraduate and graduate students

• as part of a newly forming team, to help set up the center as a leading platform for rigorous research, forward-looking teaching, effective outreach, and organizational and societal impact Your qualifications include…

• an excellent Masters degree or its equivalent in Business or Psychology or neighboring fields, including successfully completed courses in organizational behavior or organizational/ industrial psychology or social psychology

• excellent oral and written English, as evidenced, for non-native speakers, in relevant test scores (e.g., TOEFL), stays abroad and/or a Masters thesis written in English

• a very good understanding of quantitative methods, including study design and statistical analyses, and a very good command of relevant software packages, such as R, Mplus, Stata, and/or SPSS

• good technical skills, including a very good command of Microsoft office software; any coding skills are a plus

• a strong interest in research and, ideally, some relevant experience, for example, as a research assistant during your previous studies

• curiosity and discipline, self-reliance and initiative-taking, as well as integrity and creativity

You have the opportunity…

• to complete a PhD at an internationally renowned research university, with full funding and including employment as a research associate for up to six years at an an internationally competitive salary level, in line with the university’s compensation scheme

• to work with leading scholars through collaborative research projects on some of the most pressing issues of our times: the future of work and the future of leadership

• to be part of a dynamic team that is dedicated to top-tier research, inspirational teaching and impactful outreach while fostering a positive working atmosphere

• to partake in extensive career development; that includes, for example, frequent and intense mentoring, regular feedback, relevant courses, extensive networking opportunities, support for summer schools and conferences

• to develop a broad skill set by gaining teaching/training and consulting experience, and to expand your professional network through contacts to some of the world’s most renowned businesses that belong to the center’s network both locally in Zurich and globally

• to spot and act on opportunities to establish start-ups and spin-offs based on the center’s research on the future of work, with funding opportunities from our business partners

• to live in a city where the quality of life is among the best in the world

• to relatively flexibly choose your start date

About us: The University of Zurich is one of the leading research universities in Europe and enjoys an excellent international reputation. With scholars and students from all over the world, the Faculty of Business, Economics and Information Technology engages with the important economic and social questions of our times and addresses them through cutting-edge research. The Chair of Human Resource Management and Leadership is part of the Department of Business Administration within the Faculty of Business, Economics and Information Technology. In our research, we focus on the social dynamics between leaders and followers and on the role of emotions and motivation in organizational life. We employ primarily quantitative methods and conduct carefully controlled experiments as well as field and archival studies in organizations; we also use big data and related approaches in people analytics as well as qualitative approaches. We publish our findings in widely read top-tier academic journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. We also share our findings beyond academia in practitioner-oriented journals such as Harvard Business Review. Our research is frequently covered in the media around the world, for example, by the BBC, CNN, The Economist, The Financial Times, Le Monde, NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Die Zeit. Through our research and the communication of our findings in traditional and social media, we seek to inspire public debate on issues that are – or should be – at the top of the agenda for leaders and organizations.

As part of these efforts, we are now forming a research center dedicated to studying the future of work and the future of leadership, with the support of some of the world’s most renowned businesses that provide both funding and access to data. One challenge for the future, as we see it, is for the leadership, culture, and structure of organizations to deal more effectively with the rich set of emotions that the accelerating change of our time inevitably evokes. You would be part of this new center, helping us to find ways of how we can bring our academic skillset to bear on the questions of what the future of work will look like and how we can best prepare for it.

Our research informs our teaching. Through our courses, we give our students at the Bachelor, Masters and Doctoral levels a broad overview of people issues within organizations, and we aim to design courses that will ultimately serve the goal of preparing our students to successfully navigate the future of work. We also help leaders and those who aspire to be leaders to become more effective and better prepared for the future, for example, through our Executive Programs.

The Chair of Human Resource Management and Leadership and our newly forming research center dedicated to studying the future of work and the future of leadership thus provide a highly research-oriented environment in which people work together to answer big questions, inspired by challenges that leaders and corporations face currently and will face in the future. We give aspiring researchers an opportunity to grow their careers in a collaborative setting with a global outlook, and we foster a startup spirit that allows all members of the center to shape and contribute to the center’s goal of understanding and shaping what the future of work will look like and how leadership will change in the years ahead.

About Zurich: Located in the heart of Europe, Zurich is an important economic, cultural, and social center. The image of the largest city in Switzerland is dominated by its beautiful location on Lake Zurich and the Limmat River, its stunning views of the Alps on the horizon, numerous local recreation areas, and urban diversity. Around 430,000 people from more than 175 different countries live in Zurich. Zurich offers something for everyone: culinary flights of fancy, limitless shopping, numerous cultural and sporting events, Switzerland’s trendiest nightlife, over 50 museums and 100 galleries, to mention only a few – plus the amazing outdoors of Switzerland with world-class skiing slopes, hiking trails, and watersports opportunities are just steps away and often accessible with public transport.

How to apply: Step 1: Please submit your application in English via e-mail to our office manager, Lissette Cabrera: lissette.cabrera@business.uzh.ch.

Your application should consist of two PDF documents:

First, please put the following documents in this order into a single PDF document:

1. A 2-page cover letter that describes your motivation and research interests, and includes your contact data, including your Skype name, and potential start date (as per the description of Steps 2 and 4 below)

2. A current CV that includes any research-relevant experiences (assistantships, internships, lab experience, conference presentations, publications, etc.)

3. Copies of your final transcripts for high school and all university degrees

4. Optionally, any transcripts for tests scores (e.g., TOEFL, SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT)

5. Names and contact data including e-mail and phone number for two referees Second, please submit a copy of your Masters thesis as a separate PDF document. If you did more than one Masters degree, please submit your latest thesis.

Submission is on a rolling basis – we accept applications until all positions are filled. We encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible.

Step 2: If we see a good fit between your profile and our offer, we would invite you for a Skype interview. For that reason, please provide your Skype name in your cover letter.

Step 3: To get to know each other, we invite successful candidates to Zurich for further interviews.

Step 4: Once we agree to work together, you could start relatively quickly, thus please let us know in your cover letter by when you would be free to join us and when your desired start date is.

Any questions? If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact Lissette Cabrera: lissette.cabrera@business.uzh.ch. She handles all queries relating to the position.

We look forward to receiving your application!

JobPosting_PhD_2019.pdf