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Join an international academic community

The goal of the ESSEC PhD Program is to prepare you for cutting-edge research and create the conditions for your integration into and active involvement in an international academic community. Our program is full-time, entirely in English and it meets the highest international standards.

We are offering six concentrations:
• Accounting and Auditing,
• Economics,
• Finance,
• Marketing,
• Operations and Data Analytics,
• Management with specialized tracks (OB/HR, Strategy, Entrepreneuship, Information Systems and Management Control).

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PhD Program philosophy

We believe that quality research in business administration and economics demands both discipline specialization at the cutting-edge and a broad intellectual inscription with wide-ranging understanding and perspective. Only this kind of combination can generate and nurture truly innovative and relevant research. Our program fosters an interest for issues of current concern in our complex transnational business and economic world. The research developed in the Program is both theoretical and empirical – and we acknowledge the importance of scientific rigor as well as the necessity to be empirically relevant. The ESSEC PhD Program values a community approach to research. As you enter the program, you become a junior member of our international and vibrant community of lead researchers. We also create the opportunity for you to join in the broad international academic debates of your discipline as early as possible by encouraging and supporting participation in conferences and workshops and periods of stay in one of our many partner Universities and schools.

Overview of the program

The ESSEC PhD Program has two phases. The first two years is an intense period of coursework where you will be given the opportunity both to acquire a well-rounded and wide-ranging intellectual training and to deepen knowledge and mastery of your specialized field.

• General Requirement Courses: They provide you with an overview of the different fields of business administration and of the various epistemologies and methodological tools available. This endows our students with a unique interdisciplinary perspective and with broad-based methodological competencies.
  
  
• Specialized courses and seminars: These courses provide you with in-depth theoretical and methodological knowledge fitted to your concentration and area of specialization. They are tailored to give you access to current state-of-the-art research in your particular field of specialization. After the successful completion of the first two years of the program and of preliminary exams, students are awarded an Advanced Master in Business Administration Research (MS BAR). You then enter the second phase of the PhD Program.
  
  
• Dissertation Proposal: You will work with one or two ESSEC professors who will guide and direct your research. You should validate your Dissertation proposal in January of your third year.
  
  
• Dissertation Defense: It is expected to take place by the end of the fourth year. You will be working closely with your supervisor(s) with tight inscription in the broader intellectual community of your concentration and beyond.

The Faculty

ESSEC boasts a top-level international Faculty that is deeply committed to research. When you enter our Program, you join an intellectually vibrant community that is connected across the world to a broad network of scholars and institutions. Our Faculty members hold PhDs or Doctoral Degrees from the best Universities in the world.

Many members in our Faculty have an international reputation in their discipline and field – hence contributing to the brand name and international reputation of ESSEC. ESSEC Business School is a leading global business school (ranked #4 for its MiM Program by the Financial Times), with a double accreditation (AACSB and Equis) and two main campuses – one outside Paris and the other in Singapore.

Accounting and Auditing, Economics, Finance, Marketing, Operations and Data Analytics, Management with specialized tracks – OB/HR, Strategy, Entrepreneuship, Information Systems and Management Control.