PhD Decision Biases in Family Firms Internationalization

Job description

Since its foundation in 1614, the University of Groningen has enjoyed an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative center of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Belonging to the best research universities of Europe and joining forces with prestigious partner universities and networks, the University of Groningen is truly an international place of knowledge.

Faculty of Economics and Business

The Faculty of Economics and Business offers an inspiring study and working environment for students and employees. International accreditation enables the Faculty to assess performance against the highest international standards. It also creates an exciting environment of continuous improvement. FEB's programmes, academic staff and research do well on various excellence ranking lists.

FEBRI, the graduate school and research institute of the Faculty of Economics and Business has one PhD position in the field of Decision Biases in Family Firms Internationalization available.

Project description

Family firms are vulnerable to many decision biases that deviate their internationalization strategies from rational economic models. One such bias is bifurcation bias, which refers to the asymmetric treatment of family and non-family assets within a firm. Bias can also be triggered by the framing approach (e.g., aggregation rules, gain versus loss framing) that family firms use to evaluate investment outcomes. The project aims to explore how decision biases impact family firms’ internationalization, exploring heterogeneity among family firms and between family and non-family firms.

The PhD position is embedded in the research programme Global Economics and Management of FEB’s Research Institute. The project will be supervised by Prof. Rian Drogendijk, Dr Maria Cristina Sestu, and Dr Lipeng (Gary) Ge.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate is ambitious, highly motivated and wishes to make a career in research. You have has a thorough training in research skills, speaks and writes English fluently and has obtained excellent results in the Master phase.

The PhD candidate should have a background (MSc, research master) in International Business, Strategic Management, Organizational Behaviour or other relevant discipline.

Organisation

Conditions of employment

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

• a gross monthly salary from a minimum of € 2,770 which increases yearly to a maximum of € 3,539
• an additional 8% holiday allowance each year in May, and an additional 8.3 % end of year bonus in December
• a temporary full-time appointment for a period of four years, under the condition of a positive assessment at the end of the first year. PhD candidates contribute 20% of their time to teaching in years 2-4.
• Starting date: Preferably per 1 September 2024