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Choosing Your PhD Topic (and Why It Is Important)
Abstract
In this article, I outline the reasons why the choice of PhD research topic has important and persistent effects on an economist's career. Although the issues raised in this article are most acute for those wishing to pursue a career in academia, there are also implications for those working outside academia. While there are many factors that determine whether an economist has a successful career, I argue that the choice of PhD topic is an issue, which deserves more attention. Although primarily targeted at PhD students, the issues raised here resonate throughout an economist's career.
... As Table 2 indicates, abundant external factors inform graduate students' decision-making on their dissertation writing process. Except for career aspirations, language concerns, and supervisor influences that previous studies have recognized (Chu, 2015;Jensen, 2013;Keshavarz & Shekari, 2020;Lee & Deale, 2016;Tuomaala et al., 2014), some novel factors were identified from the data, such as "COVID-19 publishable topic" and "online data collection restrictions". ...
Despite dissertation's significance in enhancing the quality of scholarly outputs in tourism and hospitality fields, insufficient research investigates the challenges and disruptions students experience amidst a public health crisis. This study aims to fill the research gaps and integrate attribution and self-efficacy theories to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic influences students' decision-making and behaviours during the dissertation writing process. Qualitative exploration with 15 graduate students was conducted. The results indicate that adjustment of data collection approaches was the most shared external challenge, while students' religious background and desire for publishing COVID related topics were primary internal motivations.
... 20 These choices may have path-dependent consequences on the careers of researchers (cf. Jensen, 2013). Weitzman (1998) notes that several authors have argued that invention or discovery in any sector takes place by combining ideas. ...
We analyze the link between standardization and economic growth by systematically reviewing leading economics journals, leading economic growth researchers' articles, and economic growth-related books. We make the following observations: 1) No article has analyzed the link between standardization and economic growth in top5 economics journals between 1996 and 2018. 2) A representative sample of the leading researchers of economic growth has allocated little attention to the link between standardization and economic growth. 3) Typically, economic growth textbooks do not contain "standards" or "standardization" in their word indexes. These findings suggest that the economic growth theory has neglected the role of standardization.
... 20 These choices may have path-dependent consequences on the careers of researchers (cf. Jensen, 2013). Weitzman (1998) notes that several authors have argued that invention or discovery in any sector takes place by combining ideas. ...
We analyze the link between standardization and economic growth by systematically reviewing leading economics journals, leading economic growth researchers’ articles, and economic growth-related books. We make the following observations: 1) No article has analyzed the link between standardization and economic growth in top5 economics journals between 1996 and 2018. 2) A representative sample of the leading researchers of economic growth has allocated little attention to the link between standardization and economic growth. 3) Typically, economic growth textbooks do not contain “standards” or “standardization” in their word indexes. These findings suggest that the economic growth theory has neglected the role of standardization.
... It is important to adopt proper strategies so that they do not struggle for this purpose. This paper examines the available literature (Kumar, 2011;Saunders et al, 2009;Hulley et al, 2013;Kothari, 1985;Young, 2019;Parija and Kate, 2018;Jensen, 2013;Tayie, 2005;Donaghey, 2020;France, 2019;Lindawati, 2017) from a fresh perspective based on the author's experience. It suggests strategies on how to generate ideas and how to transform those ideas into research topics for a Ph. ...
Selection of a research topic is a challenge for students and professionals alike. This paper addresses those challenges by presenting some strategies based on existing body of knowledge and the author’s own experience. It identifies the attributes necessary to
effectively generate ideas and to convert those ideas into research topics. The study proposes a ‘FRIENDS’ framework comprising seven best practices for selecting a research topic for Ph.D. dissertations or research projects. An example of using the suggested framework is presented.
... The research problem, is considered significant as it affects the entire process of the study from the theory, to the method, and findings (Jensen, 2013;Yalcin, Bektas, Oztekin, & Karaday, 2016). The activity of providing a method and data collection for research can be considered as a set of steps (Yalcin, Bektas, Oztekin, & Karaday, 2016). ...
Journal publications are an output of research though there is little research into the process that led to the outcome and the lack of discussion and debate surrounding the process leads to an allure of mysticism. This paper studies the norms of research through investigating how successful business researchers choose their research topics. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with business researchers. Generating topic ideas by successful researchers were separated into two general sources: ‘Professional Capacity’ and ‘Individual Motivators’. The main Professional Capacity sources were students and previous research. These Professional Capacity sources can be used by an established researcher. The most valuable Individual Motivator is to read. Researchers also revealed that they chose topics they found intrinsically interesting rather than topics that would necessary have a significant impact on the literature. To achieve research and publication success, it is important to make research part of your routine and read, attend conferences, submit your work for review, and persevere.
... Tobbell, O'Donnell, and Zammit (2010) find that students who study topics suggested by supervisors and not by the students themselves have a more negative learning experience. Though not specifi- cally referring to fit, empirical studies report a positive link between emotional engagement with doc- toral topic, timely doctoral completion, research publication and a successful academic career (Gardner 2009;Jensen 2013;McAlpine 2012;Turner and McAlpine 2011). In our model, the influence of student-motivation fit sub-dimension and doctoral student performance is captured by Proposition 1.2a. ...
Understanding factors that cause students problems throughout their doctoral education is of benefit to doctoral educators striving to improve doctoral completion rates. In this paper, Baker and Pifer’s (2015, “Antecedents and Outcomes: Theories of Fit and the Study of Doctoral Education.” Studies in Higher Education 40 (2): 296–310.) multidimensional framework of student-doctoral fit is extended to create a more nuanced framework comprising student-doctoral environment fit (including the sub-dimensions: student-organisation fit, student-private environment fit and student-people fit), student-vocation fit (including the sub-dimensions: student-motivation fit and student-learning environment fit) and student-doctoral culture fit (including the subdimensions: student-learning identity fit, student-(academic)writing fit and student-personal characteristics fit). We then operationalise the framework to create a doctoral student education fit analytical
framework for providing insights on the association between fit and doctoral student performance. Our analytical model provides a springboard for fieldwork to examine student-doctoral education fit and doctoral student performance.
Effective and impactful design science research requires appropriate research conduct, and an appropriate research problem. Scholars in the DSR community continue to clarify the foundations for appropriate research conduct. In contrast, few guidelines or guardrails have been proposed to identify and develop research problems. Without such guidance, DSR efforts run the risk of pursuing problems that are either un-important or not-well-formulated. In this paper, I draw on writings beyond the DSR community to develop considerations that DSR scholars can use to identify and develop research problems, acknowledging their evolving ontological status. The paper describes an approach, articulates these considerations, and develops arguments that can help the identification and development of research problems for DSR efforts.
This paper investigates a possibly fundamental aspect of technological progress. If knowledge accumulates as technology advances, then successive generations of innovators may face an increasing educational burden. Innovators can compensate through lengthening educational phases and narrowing expertise, but these responses come at the cost of reducing individual innovative capacities, with implications for the organization of innovative activity - a greater reliance on teamwork - and negative implications for growth. Building on this "burden of knowledge" mechanism, this paper first presents six facts about innovator behaviour. I show that age at first invention, specialization, and teamwork increase over time in a large micro-data set of inventors. Furthermore, in cross-section, specialization and teamwork appear greater in deeper areas of knowledge, while, surprisingly, age at first invention shows little variation across fields. A model then demonstrates how these facts can emerge in tandem. The theory further develops explicit implications for economic growth, providing an explanation for why productivity growth rates did not accelerate through the 20th century despite an enormous expansion in collective research effort. Upward trends in academic collaboration and lengthening doctorates, which have been noted in other research, can also be explained in this framework. The knowledge burden mechanism suggests that the nature of innovation is changing, with negative implications for long-run economic growth.
Great achievements in knowledge are produced by older innovators today than they were a century ago. Nobel Prize winners and great inventors have become especially unproductive at younger ages. Meanwhile, the early life cycle decline is not offset by increased productivity beyond middle age. The early life cycle dynamics are closely related to age when the PhD was received, and I discuss a theory where knowledge accumulation across generations leads innovators to seek more education over time. More generally, the narrowing innovative life cycle reduces, other things equal, aggregate creative output. This productivity drop is particularly acute if innovators' raw ability is greatest when young. (c) 2010 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The identification of sellers and the discovery of their prices is given as an example of the role of the search for information in economic life.
Nearly all advanced graduate students and new assistant professors demonstrate naivety in their nonsubstantive professional dealings. Graduate programs in economics offer courses that lead to written drafts of important research; they teach little about how to refine those drafts and, more generally, about the personal interactions that cut and polish intellectual diamonds in the rough. I provide here a short course aimed at removing that naivety and helping young economists to avoid faux pas that might reduce their success in the profession.
The authors asked the world's leading economists to describe instances in which journals rejected their articles. More than sixty essays, by a broadly diverse group that includes fifteen Nobel Prize winners, indicate that most have suffered publication rejection, often frequently. Indeed, journals have rejected many papers that later became classics. The authors discuss the prize-winners' experiences, other notable cases, and rejections by John Maynard Keynes when he edited the Economic Journal. Finally, they search in economists' almost universal experience of rejection for patterns and lessons about the publication process. Copyright 1994 by American Economic Association.
Publishing and collaborations: Some tips for young economists’ seminar at Faculty of Business and Economics University of Melbourne
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