shankha wrote:
Thanks for the reply!
I will have a sales & marketing profile at the bank. And it gels with the area I want to research about (service brands).
Ah, nice.
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I agree that most doctoral students do not have industry work experience. And this is the argument that I gave to my prof while we were discussing this. But, she said that, this is what ails management education because the professors teach only theoretical concepts to the students and for successful teaching a mix of theory and practice is required. That's why I am in a dilemma.
It is a reasonable argument. But the question is if this issue concerns you more or your professor?
I'm inclined to believe that work experience is more likely to indirectly contribute to your future goals. I say this because there is no guarantee that working in industry over an extended, but still relatively short, period of time will provide greater insight than having just a taste of it. Nor is it likely that your interests will remain static throughout your academic career for you to constantly draw upon what you experienced in industry. However, if you're genuinely more interested in applied research than disciplinary research, it could be useful to stay in industry for a few years if only to allow yourself the opportunity for admission to a program which promotes such values. Such a program should have links to industry which could serve as a supply line for new and evolving research ideas. So yes, work experience could set the ball rolling but the experience of that job itself may not directly or continuously add value to your research (and consequent teaching).
For your interest, I recall Baba Shiv at Stanford (
https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/facultypro ... d=44749209) having a few years work experience (3 years pre-MBA, 3 years post-MBA) before starting his PhD at Duke. I took a quick look at his CV to see what sort of work he did. It isn't very detailed but it might be helpful.
Pre-academic:
Vadilal Enterprises Limited, Bombay, India (product launch of their ice cream in South India), Blow Plast Limited, India (sales and new product introductions), Larsen & Toubro Limited, India (Caterpillar Tractors and Poclain Hydraulic Excavators)
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And some UK schools require GMAT (though Lancaster doesn't). How are UK PhD's rated in comparison to US PhD programs?
If we're using placement as the sole criteria, then LBS compares favourably to a top 10-12 US school (it's program structure is also very similar to a US school). Said, Judge, WBS etc tend to place well in good British, Irish and continental European universities. Cranfield did send Siri Terjesen to Indiana. There are of course a number of factors which would account for these differences that go beyond the mere perception of 'quality' of the institution (commitments, interests etc.) but networking and publishing through the right channels (or the lack thereof for most British B-school PhDs) also contribute. In truth, it isn't fair to judge a program's suitability based on its placement records but it's a starting point.