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That the PhD student has started his or her PhD project and made reflections on its empirical theme, theory and level of analysis.

The PhD course in management technology is required for PhD students enrolled in the PhD programme. Its purpose is to identify and analyse central issues in relation to management technology, which relate to managerial economics, supply chain management, performance management and innovation management.

The teaching form includes teacher and student-presentations. Break-out sessions, intensive reading of texts and writing of a small project.


The course emphasises finding dilemmas and problematisation which make a theme researchable. Not all questions are research questions; some are merely empirical questions. Research questions require theorisation which is both input, process and output of a research process.

The course requires reflexivity generally in the area of business and management studies but it nevertheless focuses on two dimensions in the business of business firms namely performance management and inter-organisational relations. These are the central empirical elements in the course which then are used to illustrate how reflexivity and researchable questions can develop.

Integrated with this, the course has a particular focus on what characterises a management technology. There are many management tools but their power and consequences are rarely given by their logical or aesthetical constitution. Looking at management tools as technology the central question is how a set of procedures which reduce a 3-dimensial empirical space to a 2-dimensional informational space make intervention more possible? This discussion concerns both generally what is a representation and also how does a representation hold the entities that it is supposed to represent? Management technology and research methodology have much in common and this is explored in this course.

The course starts with the question how to study ’systems’ when it is unclear when one systems stops and another starts. The course thus is concerned with how systems are made manageable. Typically this concerns how systems’ resources and activities can be made part of the production of effects and be attached to accountability.

On this basis the course has three main themes:
A. Management Technology
B. Managing inter-organisational relations and performance
C. Critical appraisal

The teaching form includes teacher and student-presentations. Break-out sessions, intensive reading of texts and writing of a small project.

STRUCTURE: WORKSHOPS, REFLECTION AND PERSPECTIVE
This is an advanced course. It builds on knowledge at level with introducing texts in organisational theory, operations management, and management control which can be learnt from having a look e.g. in
 Scott, W.R. (2003), Organizations. Rational, natural and open systems. 5. ed., Prentice Hall
 Slack, N., Chambers, S., Harland, C., Harrison, A. & Johnston, R. (1998), Operations management. Pitman, London
 Berry, A.J., Broadbent, J & Otley, D.T. (1998), Management control theory. Ashgate/Dartmouth, Aldershot

The teaching form includes teacher and student-presentations. Break-out sessions, intensive reading of texts and writing of a small project.

Enable the student to critically relate to the field with a view to reflect on and transgress established frames of understanding
Debate issues where the field’s issues collide particularly in relations between performance management and management of inter-organisational relations
Focus on systematic reflection of the premises of the field, its empirical propositions, theoretical hypotheses and methodology.

Preparation:

Each student reads the material for each day typically 3 journal articles + book chapters
Each student prepares a brief paper (3-5 pages) about his or her own research problem related to central themes developed in the course. In addition each student writes review comments on two of these papers.

The paper is background to a presentation to be made to the plenary.

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