The School of Business and Law at the University of Agder is a high-profile AACSB accredited business school in Norway, and amongst the top business schools in Norway when it comes to research output per faculty member. Our PhD program is one of Europe’s leading programs in the field of International Business, which is our main specialization. However, we also accept candidates into the programme from other areas where we have a good research environment like innovation and entrepreneurship, alternative finance (in eg. crowdfunding or microfinance), economic and financial behaviour and more.
We equip our candidates with a global mindset and contemporary research skills. Our graduates find prestigious jobs within and outside academia, and they publish in top-tier publications on the Financial Times List and ranked by the Chartered Association of Business Schools as Level 4-4* journals. The program currently includes around 40-50 PhD candidates from across the globe working closely with their highly motivated supervisors in an excellent study environment.
For more information about the programme description, learning outcomes, coursework and outline of the programme we refer to the courseplan. Admission to our PhD program is normally biannual in cohorts, but fully funded students may be accepted outside cohorts. The next biannual cohort is planned to start up early spring 2025 and calls will be announced soon here. A list of potential supervisors can be found below.
Norwegian education is of high quality and controlled by Norwegian authorities
School of Business and Law is AACSB accredited
The PhD program is member of EDAMBA and generally recognized for its high quality
Supervisors are motivated and internationally recognized scholars
Generous funding
Free education and supervision
Full salaries (Norwegian level) or scholarships to selected candidates
Funding offered at the Faculty for international conferences, courses etc.
Our candidates find relevant jobs
Nearly all graduated candidates find relevant jobs, most in academia but also in the private or public sector
Several candidates become recognized international academic researchers
Excellent study environment
Candidates work closely with their supervisors and are integrated in research groups
All candidates belong to cohorts of students
Good office space, access to databases and library infrastructure
Most candidates finish their PhD within three or four years
Candidates publish their research in high quality international journals
Admission
To qualify for the programme candidates should normally:
have a master’s degree, including a master thesis, from an academic institution with good reputation, preferably in Economics, Finance, Business Administration, Innovation Studies, Management, Marketing, Development Management, International Business or a related business or management discipline (300 ECTS credits), obtained at least with honours (B or better). Generally, at least 90 ECTS credits must be core subjects from business studies.
be fluent in written and oral English
have strong qualifications in applied research methods, and preferably have experience from studying abroad.
The School of Business and Law has a strong focus on Internationalization and an increasing number of PhD-candidates are organized as cotutelles, i.e. joint supervision, in partnership with international Business Schools and Universities. Cotutelle-candidates are appointed supervisor, take courses and spend at least one year at each institution. The candidates receive their PhD titles and diplomas from each of the institutions.
Candidates and universities interested in organizing cotutelle agreements with us are welcome to get in touch with the Director of the PhD programme, Professor Tobias Otterbring.
Funding of studies
Some candidates are offered PhD-fellow positions to finance their studies while others obtain scholarships or other types of external funding, including funding by cotutelle partner universities. PhD-fellow positions at the School of Business and Law are announced here: http://www.uia.no/en/vacancies3.
A fully funded project is a requirement for acceptance to a PhD-programme at UiA. Get in touch with the Director of the PhD programme, Professor Tobias Otterbring, if you have access to a scholarship and would like to do your PhD at the School of Business and Law. Private funding from family etc is not allowed per our regulations.
Specialisation in International Business
International Business, broadly defined, is the largest research area at the School of Business and Law and constitutes a separate specialization within the PhD programme.
For more information about the specialization, see this page.
Potential supervisors – 2024 applications
Professor Rotem Shneor: Interested in all research themes related to crowdfunding, crowdlending, and related models of alternative finance. Including (but not limited to) the following themes, which may involve comparisons across crowdfunding models, country, and sector settings:
Determinants and consequences of crowdfunding awareness, intentions, and/or behaviors among backers/investors and fundraisers.
Trust building and facilitation strategies in crowdfunding by different stakeholders (e.g., fundraisers, platform operators, and backers/investors).
Internationalization and cross-border operations of crowdfunding platforms.
Determinants, types, and consequences of different relations between crowdfunding platforms and traditional financial institutions (e.g., cooperation, competition, coopetition, ownership, etc.).
Impact of crowdfunding practice at either micro level (e.g., individual fundraisers and/or investors), messo level (e.g., access to finance, firm development, and growth), and macro level (e.g., local, regional, and/or market development and growth).
Use of crowdfunding by and its impact on disadvantaged and underserved social groups (e.g., early-stage high risk startups, women entrepreneurs, disabled, immigrant entrepreneurs, etc.).
Use of crowdfunding by and its impact on public institutions and civic organizations (e.g., local, regional, and national government organizations, etc.).
Ethical aspects and decision-making in crowdfunding practices.
Risk assessment, management, and mitigation by crowdfunding platforms – mapping strategy types and their prospective effectiveness and impact.
Professor Tobias Otterbring: consumer behavior, consumer psychology, social influence, artificial intelligence, field experiments, resource scarcity, sustainability, morality, and cross-cultural research. I have more knowledge and expertise in business-to-customer (B2C) research and quantitative/experimental methods, and relatively less knowledge and expertise in business-to-business (B2B) research and qualitative methods. Thus, I will prioritize potential PhD candidates with interests that overlap with my own areas, methods, and contexts of expertise.
Associate Professor Soogand Golesorkhi: Internationalisation strategies of the firm, institutional impact on entreprenurship growth, internationalisation of social enterprises, perfromance drivers of collaborative ventures, institituional drivers of foreign direct investment.
Professor Ellen Nyhus: Financial literacy, financial well-being, psychological determinants of financial behaviour, economic socialisation, gender differences in financial behaviour, economic psychology and behavioural economics
Professor Andreas Wald: areas of interest are projects/temporary organizations, (international) entrepreneurship (e.g., SME internationalization, entrepreneurial ecosystems), management control and innovation.
Professor Roy Mersland: Potential supervision topics: Savings and Credit groups, Microfinance, Social Enterprises/Hybrid Organizations, Entrepreneurship, International Business, Nonprofit organizations, Ownership & Corporate Governance.
Professor Tor Helge Aas: innovation management, business model innovation, service innovation, open innovation, digital innovation
Professor Anders Örtenblad: Organization and metaphor (e.g., metaphors for organization/s), Organizational learning/learning organization, Employability, Organization structure, Bad leadership, Leaderless management, Trade unions, Management fashions/fashionable management ideas, Anonymous feedback (especially the one that is forwarded from manager to employee)
Professor Kimmo Alajoutsijärvi: interested in supervising on the following theories/concepts: Business relationships and networks, competition, business cycles and business bubbles, social evaluation constructs (legitimacy, status, reputation, stigma), ideologies or empirical settings: business to business markets, heavy industries, higher education, business schools, software industry.
Professor Steen Koekebakker: My academic background is primarily in energy finance, but recent years my interests have shifted towards sustainable investments. I look forward to supervising PhD students in International Business who have a strong interest in finance and are keen to delve into sustainability-focused research.
Associate Professor Daniel Göller: doing research on contracts, law and economics, industrial organization, and behavioral economics (could be extended to other fields that are more business related as well).
Associate Professor Bjørn-Tore Flåten: interested in supervising topics on Hybrid work modes, Knowledge sharing, Creativity or Strategic HRM – talent management.
Associate Professor Stine Øyna: Interested in research areas related to entrepreneurship, including: The entrepreneurial process, entrepreneurial individuals, business design, entrepreneurship/innovation education, social entrepreneurship, green entrepreneurship, and women in entrepreneurship.
Associate Professor Hossein Baharmand: interested in technology and supply chain management, circular economy, systems thinking, and decision support systems, with applications in different contexts such as humanitarian aid.
Born Globals - early drivers for internationalization and maturity indicators and strategies.
Competitive Intelligence - sources (Web-based vs. Human-based) and content, use of intelligence and its consequences.
Coopetition - Upstream vs. downstream coopetition agreements-strategic choices and implementations.
Entry modes in the digital era - how this influence scale, scope and aims and how do they coencide with company's goals and evolution. In a broader sense, subjects which fall within the area of International marketing/International entrepreneurship.