Doctoral Workshop - Overview

From Monday 19th June to Saturday 24th June 2023 the Employment Relations & HRM Group at UCD School of Business and the ERC Research Group ‘Labour Politics & the EU’s New Economic Governance regime’ at the UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy are hosting a doctoral workshop on research quality and productivity to be led by Prof Sarosh Kuruvilla from the ILR School at Cornell University. 

The workshop is designed for doctoral students and junior faculty in management, human resources, employment relations, sociology, political sciences, organizational studies, and other social sciences that privilege inductive and qualitative research.
The purpose of this weeklong intensive seminar is to help participants increase the quality of their research. This is NOT a research methodology seminar, which is offered in most institutions. Rather, the course surveys the various determinants of quality in ways that can guide everyone to achieve higher quality outputs. The goal of the seminar is to help participants develop high quality dissertations and publish in highly ranked academic journals.

The workshop grew out of a PhD course that has been taught at Cornell University for over 20 years by Professor Kuruvilla. It has been offered previously in Scandinavia, China, India and the UK. In the UK, it has been held at Queen Mary University and the London School of Economics. The feedback from students at the last iteration can be seen here.

Briefly, the weeklong workshop includes topics such as philosophy of research and paradigms of inquiry, quality criteria, inductive and deductive approaches, developing high quality research questions, the fit between question and methods, writing and presentation, choosing journals, responding to reviewer comments, the writing of major research project applications, and the importance, of passion, academic collaboration and community. The course requires HEAVY reading, to be done in advance. Each day will be long, consisting of discussions of readings, presentations, and critiques of research proposals.

The workshop grew out of a PhD course that has been taught at Cornell University for over 20 years by Professor Kuruvilla. It has been offered previously in Scandinavia, China, India and the UK. In the UK, it has been held at Queen Mary University and the London School of Economics. The feedback from students at the last iteration can be seen here.

Briefly, the weeklong workshop includes topics such as philosophy of research and paradigms of inquiry, quality criteria, inductive and deductive approaches, developing high quality research questions, the fit between question and methods, writing and presentation, choosing journals, responding to reviewer comments, and the importance, of passion, academic collaboration and community. The course requires HEAVY reading, to be done in advance. Each day will be long, consisting of discussions of readings, presentations, and critiques of research proposals.

Who should attend?

This Workshop is targeted towards doctoral students in industrial relations, organizational behavior, sociology, political sciences, human resource management and other management and social science disciplines that emphasize inductive field research using qualitative methods. The focus of the workshop is on research quality and productivity using inductive methods. The workshop may also be useful for junior faculty at the beginning of their careers who are preparing strategies to meet tenure requirements at their institutions.

How to register

To register for the workshop and to see the costs of attendance go to this link.

The deadline for registration is Sunday May 14th 2023 at 17:00 (Irish time).

The syllabus for last year's workshop can be viewed here.

Testimonials from participants of previous workshops can be read here.