(Note: This is not the official announcement, which you can find here, where you will also find a link to the application program. I post this here because this blog is easier to update, allows me to link to pertinent information more easily, allows pictures, and allows comments and questions.)

 

Announcement: Available Ph. D. Scholarships in Technology Strategy

 

BI Norwegian School of Management is inviting applications for scholarships in technology strategy. The scholarships are made available through the iAD Center for Research-based Innovation, an eight-year research project funded by the Norwegian Research Council and hosted by FAST Search and Transfer, a Microsoft Company. The candidates will pursue their Ph. D. through the doctoral programs of BI Norwegian School of Management and do their thesis research on topics of interest to the iAD project.

The Doctoral program at BI Norwegian School of Management

BI Norwegian School of Management offers a four year doctoral program in business administration. The program features five areas of specialization: Financial Economics, Strategic Management, Marketing, Leadership and Organization, and Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The candidates for the scholarships may work under any of these specializations, but the most natural fit is probably with the Strategy or Innovation and Entrepreneurship area.

The iAD (Information Access Disruptions) project

Information access technology – the technologies, such as search, categorization, and other ways of accessing and refining information – has emerged as one of the most innovative technology areas impacting a wide range of industries, business models and even social patterns. The iAD Centre does research on new technologies and new technology uses in this area.

Partially funded by the Research Council of Norway as a Centre for Research-based Innovation (SFI), iAD is hosted and directed by Fast Search & Transfer in collaboration with Schibsted, one of Europe’s largest media companies, Accenture, an international consultancy, and leading universities: Cornell University, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, BI Norwegian School of Management and the universities in Tromsø (UiT), Trondheim (NTNU) and Oslo (UiO). The iAD comprises five subprojects, four of them technical in nature, one focused on business. The five are:

1. Create schema agnostic indexing services fusing structured, unstructured and multimedia content in precision, analytics and scale optimized information access services
2. Develop scalable and fault-tolerant system architectures including data processing and mining platforms for capturing, cleaning, and extracting knowledge from high-speed data streams
3. Develop and validate in real environments next generation infrastructure for distributed information access
4. Develop extreme precision solutions for access to multimedia
5. Identify disruptive processes either within information access or enabled by information access solutions

Subproject 5 is lead by BI Norwegian School of Management and formally hosted by the Center for Technology Strategy (CTS). The principal researchers in subproject 5 are

Espen Andersen, Associate professor of strategy, Department of Strategy and Logistics. Dr. Andersen does research on technology evolution, technology impact on business strategy, technology management, social media and IT leadership. He holds a DBA degree from 1995 from the Harvard Business School. His personal web page is at www.espen.com.

Ingunn Myrtveit, Professor of management accounting and software economics, Department of Accounting, Auditing and Law. Dr. Myrtveit does empirical research on economic incentives, project cost estimation, productivity analysis and cost-benefit analysis of software implementation. She holds a Ph. D degree from 1995 from the Norwegian School of Economics and Administration.

Torger Reve, Professor, Wilh Wilhelmsen Chair in Strategy and Industrial Competitiveness, Department of Strategy and Logistics. Dr. Reve does research on industry cluster and knowledge hub development, the shipping industry, and competitive strategy. He holds a Ph.D. degree from 1980 from Kellogg School of Business, Northwestern University.

More information about the iAD project may be found at the NSM Center for Technology Strategy web pages.

Research topics

The research topics under subproject 5 of iAD can be broadly divided into three theoretical streams:

• Disruptive potential of search and other information access technologies (disruptive innovation theory), with topics such as the effect of information access technology on users, markets and industries; Integrated vs. modular technology and market windows; Patterns of technology and market evolution, evolutions in technology use. (Contact Espen Andersen for more details, a potential list of projects can be found here.)
• iAD economics (software economics), with topics such as business cases for search technology, project cost estimation models, economic growth and search and user behavior (Contact Ingunn Myrtveit for more details)
• Technology clusters and models for cooperation and development (strategic cluster theory), with research topics such as economic drivers of geographically based innovation; the development of knowledge hubs, industry knowledge networks and innovation diffusion (Contact Torger Reve or Espen Andersen for more details)

Desired candidate profile

We encourage applications from students who have a strong background in technology and/or business, interested in an academic career in research and teaching, possessing strong analytical skills. Students with a passion for bridging the communications and knowledge gap between business and technology researchers and practitioners will be welcome. After successful completion of the program we expect our graduates to be placed at leading research institutions or work with leading technology enterprises.

The selected candidates will be working closely with the faculty and their main place of work will be at the Norwegian School of Management in Oslo and at the iAD lab, currently hosted at FAST Search and Transfer in central Oslo.

Formalities

The four-year scholarships are set according to the Norwegian State Salary Scale,
and currently pay NOK 341,800 per year (approximately USD 48,500 at current exchange rates). The scholarships involve 25% (35 hours) teaching and/or research assistant responsibilities.

The application should include the following: a well prepared project description, a CV and copies of diplomas and testimonials. Applications must be submitted electronically using the procedure as explained at the Doctoral Program pages.

Appointment to a position as Doctoral Scholar is conditioned on admittance to BI Norwegian School of Management’s doctoral program in accordance with the admission requirements, which includes a completed master thesis with a grade B or higher.

If applicants are otherwise equally qualified, female applicants will be given preference.

Applicants are encouraged to contact Associate Professor of Strategy Espen Andersen (self@espen.com, +47 4641 0452) or Professor of Business Economics Ingunn Myrtveit (ingunn.myrtveit@bi.no, +47 4641 0431) for further information about the iAD project, the application and the project description.

Additional information about the doctoral program, admission requirements can be obtained from the Program Director Dóra Sigurdardottir at BI Norwegian School of Management (dora.s.sigurdardottir@bi.no, +47 46 41 00 57).

The application deadline for doctoral scholarships at BI Norwegian School of Management is March 2nd, 2009. This deadline is short, but there is an option to submit your application before the deadline and the submit the attachments, in particular the research proposal, at a later stage and after communicating with the researchers. However, a short statement of research interest should be included, indicating both the research interest and the candidate’s time plan for completion.