PhD position The sustainability challenge: Substantial contributions of firms

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 available one PhD position “The sustainability challenge: Substantial contributions of firms”

Project description

The challenges of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and broader sustainability issues are among the most pressing global concerns of our time. Firms and their behaviour will play a central role in managing these issues and concerns, and are increasingly pushed towards more disclosure on this topic. For instance, as of 2024, the European Corporate Social Responsibility Directive (CSRD) mandates disclosure and assurance of non-financial information for large firms. This project aims to examine how various stakeholders affect the CSR challenges firms face. We are particularly interested in how substantive the provided non-financial information is, and whether different governance actors, including auditors, (distracted) shareholders, the board of directors, and top management teams contribute to genuine CSR activities, or whether we will see CSR decoupling. We aim to contribute to this important topic by providing a multi-faceted stakeholder perspective, using modern techniques for analysing texts, and a rich proprietary dataset allowing for detailed analyses.

Organisation

The PhD position is embedded in the research programme Accounting and Auditing of FEB’s Research Institute. The project will be supervised by Jos Offerein, Yasemin Zengin-Karaibrahimoglu and Reggy Hooghiemstra.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate is ambitious, highly motivated and wishes to make a career in research. He or she 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 preferably have a background (MSc, research master) in accounting, business or finance. We are also open to candidates with a quantitative background in other directions of the social sciences, such as economics/econometrics, psychology or sociology. Ideally, the candidate has experience working with large datasets and programming, or is willing to develop these skills during their PhD trajectory.

Organisation

Conditions of employment

The full-time appointment is temporary for a period of four years, under the condition of a positive assessment at the end of the first year. The gross monthly salary is € 2,901, which increases yearly to a maximum of € 3,707. Based on the gross salary you will receive an additional 8% holiday allowance each year in May, and an additional 8.3% end of year bonus in December. PhD candidates contribute 20% of their time to teaching in years 2-4.

Starting date: Preferably per September 1, 2025.

An assessment may be part of the procedure, consisting of psychological tests and an interview.