Department of Organization

IOAs PhD education
Department of Organization’s PhD line aims to develop scholars with strong methodological skills and ability to theorise and investigate societally relevant questions pertaining to organizational, managerial, and governance-related phenomena. A major strength of the programme is its emphasis on strong empirical analyses and solid theoretical anchoring. IOA predominantly recruits PhD students on a 3-year scheme, funded either by the department/CBS, external collaborative research grants, industrial PhD funding, or by other academic institutions such as the National Research Center for the Working Environment, and the Royal Danish Defence College. Read more here.

Being a PhD student at IOA
At IOA we believe that an important aspect of a successful, fruitful, and joyful PhD process means being part of strong scholarly communities. While the department provides an organizational community for all PhD students, it also offers additional PhD support activities to strengthen the interaction between the individual PhD students and their peers. In a collaboration between senior faculty and PhD students, we strive to create and strengthen a community of practice, a peer-learning community, and a social community. Read more here.

The impact and career paths of our PhDs
The largest part of our alumni have pursued academic careers - in Denmark and internationally. Many industrial PhDs have returned to their partner organizations with new potentials for having a research-based impact on practice. And many are bringing their expertise into play in public organizations or consultancies - see a list of organizations where IOA PhD alumni have been employed here or get an impression in our short portraits below.

Bontu Lucie Guschke I did my PhD at IOA at the intersection of organization studies and diversity research, investigating the persistence of sexism and racism at universities. After completing my PhD, I got a job as a postdoctoral researcher at Freie Universität Berlin, working in the Research Group Gender Studies at the Institute of Sociology. My PhD education gave me competencies to reflect critically on knowledge production and contribute to if carefully and skillfully. It helped me develop research that is relevant both for scholars in different fields as well as for actors outside universities, including private and public organizations, educators and activists.

Thorben Peter Høj Simonsen I completed my PhD in 2020 at IOA, focusing on the spatical organization of psychiatric practive and particularly the concept of ´Healing Architecture'. After completing my PhD I got a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Business IT at the IT University in Copenhagen, teaching courses across programs on organizational change and organizational process theory, and conducting research at the intersection between technology, digitalization and health. This led to my most recent position as Researcher at the Danish Center for Social Research (VIVE), in VIVE Health. My PhD education at IOA equipped me with an invaluable understanding of organizational dymanics, an analytical ability to understand complex organizational contexts, and competencies in qualitive research methods, all of which I use in my current position.

Jacob Brogaard-Kay After three years at IOA as an industrial PhD, I got a job at Novo Nordisk as an HR Project Manager and later as Global Head of Performance Management. After that, I spent some time in Lundbeck as HR Business Partner and today I wak at Genmab as Global Head of Talent Management. Through my PhD, I became used to engaging with complicated contexts and problems from different perspectives. One of the most important competencies I achieved was to not take certain processes or methods for granted, but instead seeing opportunities for relevant organizational change.

Jack Kværnø-Jones My PhD at IOA explored how financial professionals in Fin Tech and establised banks imagine new ways of doing banking. After completing my PhD, I got a job as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at King's Business School in London, where I continue to study how work in the financial sector responds to tehnological developments, such as AI and decentralised finance. The PhD process helped me develop as a scholar and a person, giving me competencies in designing, conducting and communicating social science research, as well as skills to research the things I find interesting and intervene in contemporary academic and societa conversations.

Stine Quorning I did a PhD at IOA in International Political Economy, conducting research in green central banking and the emerging field of new regulatory measures in green finance. After completing my PhD, I got a job as ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) consultant at Sydbank, where I now work with measures to green Sydbank's lending activities. My PhD education gave me strong methodological and project management skills as well as extensive knowledge of my empirical field, which are competencies I bring into play on a daily basis in my current position.

Saila Stausholm I completed my PhD in 2022 on the international political economy of corporate taxation. My PhD education provided me with strong analytical skills and the ability to approach problems creatively, thinking of new questions and ways to answer them empirically and conceptually. I find these skills useful as I now approach new research topics as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany.