PhD Scholarships with International Collaborators
We want our students to succeed in the global economy. That is why we offer a range of scholarships with international collaborators to support excellent candidates.
Sheffield University Management School has an overarching mission to give priority to research that promotes socially responsible work practices.
Our research strategy derives its distinctive character by prioritising research that encourages positive societal transformation and sustainable policy outcomes.
We seek to promote a vibrant, enabling and inclusive research environment that prizes ambitious and pluralistic intellectual enquiry.
To enhance the research environment, and support the school's international research collaborations we are investing in a number of PhD scholarships. Doctoral students will join our community of scholars and develop the advanced skills required for rewarding careers in academia or industry.
We do this by delivering an outstanding supervision experience underpinned by our commitment to engage in socially responsible research.
Entry requirements
The Management School is looking to appoint exceptional candidates to its doctoral programme.
Candidates will typically have a background in business and management, or a cognate social science field. For the advertised scholarships below, they will normally have:
- An undergraduate degree that is equivalent to a UK classification of upper second-class honours or above.
- A masters level qualification of merit or above. Candidates currently completing their masters may only be considered in exceptional circumstances.
Our English Language requirement is IELTS at 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component or equivalent. Click here for more detailed information, however please be aware that our entry requirements are above the standard minimum listed on these pages and completion of a first degree taught in English in a majority native English speaking country must be within three years of the start date of the course.
Funding
These are fully funded 3.5 year scholarships covering Home or International tuition fees, and a stipend at the basic UKRI rate (£19,237 for 2024/25). To support the international dimension of these projects an enhanced research and training support grant (RTSG) of £7250 in total is available to support research costs during the successful applicants' PhD periods.
How to apply
In order to be considered for the following studentships, you must also apply for a place to study in the department using the Postgraduate Online Application Form.
In crafting a research proposal, you are required to demonstrate how you would engage with objectives of the proposed scholarship. The proposal is vital to the success of your application, should be fully referenced and approximately 3000 words (excluding bibliography) in length. It should include:
- Title of your proposed PhD research
- The main aims and objectives of your research
- Discussion of relevant existing literature
- The proposed methods of research and a plan and timetable of work
- Any resources available and any additional ones required
Read the University's application guidance and apply now
The deadline for applications is 10 July 2024.
All PhD scholarships below have a start date of 1 October 2024.
PhD Scholarships currently available
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Investigating status conflict in teams led by women and ethnic minority team members
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Project description
This PhD project will use two secondary datasets and a series of experiments to explore how teams led by white women and ethnic minorities manage status related conflict in newly formed teams. The project will draw on Expectation States Theory which highlights how individuals in newly formed performance-oriented groups are likely to be granted high and low status positions. In the absence of task expertise, diffuse status characteristics (e.g. gender, ethnicity) tend to be used as indicators of high status, meaning that women and ethnic minorities often occupy low status positions in teams. Recent work has found that teams seem to perform ‘better’ when ethnic minorities and women are in low status positions. This is theorised to occur due to the absence of status related conflict among team members, which illustrates the barriers that women and ethnic minority leaders face when adopting leadership roles. This project will therefore explore when and how minorities are able to overcome status conflict in these teams using an interaction process analysis methodology.
Given the quantitative nature of this research, the successful candidate will have a very strong aptitude for research design and statistics and will have a background in psychology or a related discipline. They will be supervised by Dr Sam Farley, Dr Nicola Thomas, and Professor Jeremy Dawson from the Institute of Work Psychology, Sheffield University Management School.
International collaborator(s)
The project offers the opportunity to collaborate with Professor Eden King and Professor Mikki Hebl from Rice University’s Department of Psychological Sciences. Professors King and Hebl are experts in Diversity and Inclusion and have a longstanding collaborative relationship with Professor Jeremy Dawson. The plan is for the successful candidate to have a four week stay at Rice University in the final year of their studies, so that they can write up their findings for journal publication under the guidance of Professors King and Hebl, who would feed into the supervision throughout the PhD project.
Lead supervisor
For informal enquiries, please contact Dr Sam Farley.
Research centre
The Institute of Work Psychology (IWP)
This research centre combines scientific quality with practical relevance. Their emphasis is on the effects of work on employee wellbeing and performance.
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An investigation of transaction-level P2P Lending in Germany and the EU
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Project description
The proposed investigation seeks to advance understanding of the impact of Fintech on economic inclusivity and growth within the context of Europe’s evolving digital transformation. Through its assessment of new technologies and regulations, the project seeks to identify actionable insights to guide global policy and industry standards on Fintech lending (and P2P lending most particularly). The application of machine learning and Big Data techniques will enable assessment of the antecedent institutional, disclosure, governance, and micro-level factors necessary for P2P funding success in the German and/or EU market context. The successful applicant must have strong quantitative, statistical, and analytical skills. Demonstrated knowledge of Python and Machine Learning techniques will be an advantage.
International collaborator(s)
The collaboration is with the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Mannheim, Germany. The successful applicant will be expected to spend time at the University of Mannheim conducting field and empirical work in relation to the collection and analysis of P2P lending data relevant to the German and EU market context. One or more University of Mannheim faculty members will assist through the provision of advice, access to office space, and IT Facilities. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to liaise with major fintech hubs/clusters and related research centres within the Rhine-Neckar region of Germany.
Lead supervisor
For informal enquiries, please contact Professor Paul McGuinness.
Research centre
Centre for Research into Accounting and Finance in Context (CRAFiC)
CRAFiC is at the heart of the debate about the role of accounting and finance in the development of inclusive and sustainable societies.
- The Organisation and Impact of National Systems of Labour Administration
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Project description
The project will focus on national systems of labour administration, i.e. public administration activities in the field of national labour policy, as defined by the ILO’s Convention No 150. The project will examine the development of labour administration systems in particular countries over time and analyse the consequences of the organisation of labour administration for outcomes relating to work and employment. In examining these issues, the project will investigate the roles, responsibilities and capacities of labour ministries, other relevant ministries, labour administration bodies and related actors and institutions (such as social dialogue). The project can be approached in different ways. It might engage with academic debates relating to, for example, comparative institutional analysis, decent work, governance, public administration, social policy, sustainable development and the state. The project’s research methods are likely to involve interviews with officials located in ministries of labour, officials of other relevant ministries, employer and trade union representatives and other relevant stakeholders. A survey element might also be included.
In addition to fulfilling the criteria for the award of a PhD, the project should also have practical relevance for the ILO. It is anticipated that the project will produce recommendations for how the capacity and effectiveness of national labour administration bodies might be enhanced, with reference to the UN’s principles of effective governance. More specific objectives and research activities will be discussed and agreed by the student, the supervisors and the ILO.
The successful applicant will have a strong aptitude for qualitative research and will likely have a strong grounding in employment relations, global labour studies, politics, political economy, public administration, social policy or work and employment, although applications from individuals with other social science backgrounds are also very welcome.
International collaborator(s)
The project will be supported by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). There will be opportunities to engage with ILO personnel and spend periods of time at the ILO’s headquarters in Geneva. The ILO will facilitate discussions/interviews with ILO specialists in ILO HQ field offices in different regions of the world as well as with selected qualified officials from ILO Member States. The project will help support the ILO’s work in the area of labour administration. It is anticipated that the student will provide the ILO with periodic short reports of emerging findings and a more detailed final report with practical recommendations.
Lead supervisor
For informal enquiries, please contact Professor Jason Heyes.
Research centre
The Centre for Decent Work's experts produce ground-breaking research on a wide range of issues related to decent work and workplaces.
- Exploring the role of stakeholder engagement in transformative value creation within the service ecosystem
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Project description
The research project aims to explore the complex process of transformative value creation within service ecosystems. Through the integrated perspectives of relationship management and learning theory, the primary objective is to analyse the multifaceted interactions among direct/indirect stakeholders, seeking to uncover how they collaborate and interact to create and foster transformative value within service ecosystems. Employing a mixed-method approach, the project will centre its investigation on refugee communities and the established service ecosystems catering to their needs in both the US and UK. Refugee communities, often underserved and understudied, rely heavily on both formal and informal networks to adapt and thrive in their host countries. By exploring how transformative value can be created within these ecosystems, this research aims to contribute significantly to refugee integration and societal well-being. Such insights are not only critical to academic understanding but also have profound implications for shaping effective public policies.
An ideal candidate possesses a strong aptitude for both qualitative and quantitative research design, ideally with a background in Service Marketing, Business-to-Business Marketing, Transformative Service Research, or a related field.
International collaborator(s)
This international collaboration between the University of Sheffield and Texas State University (TXST) is a joint project that will significantly advance the growing field of Transformative Service Research (TSR). This will offer the PhD candidate an opportunity to work closely with researchers from the Behavioural Research for Inclusivity, Sustainability and Technological Transformation (BRISTT) research cluster at University of Sheffield, TXST and ServCollab.
Lead supervisor
For informal enquiries, please contact Dr Saeed Najafi-Tavani.
Research cluster
Behavioural Research for Inclusivity, Sustainability and Technological Transformation (BRISTT)
BRISTT’s research focuses on the impact that consumption, services and technology have on societal wellbeing and the environment.
- How Relationships with Leaders Impact Loneliness at Work: A Comparative Study Between Remote and In-Person Settings
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Project description
Do you want to pioneer using cutting edge technology to investigate how work-related interactions are impacting employees’ loneliness? This fully funded PhD offers access a vibrant research community within the Institute of Work Psychology and an opportunity to collaborate with experts from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
The overarching aim of this project is to explore, from a sociobiological perspective, how manager-employee relationships influence an employee’s levels of loneliness. Feelings of loneliness at work arise when employees’ experiences of interacting with and relating to others fall short of their expectations. Workplace loneliness has negative implications for employees and organisations.
In this PhD, the successful candidate will design and lead on a programme of research to study the verbal and nonverbal, conscious and unconscious, behavioural expressions of managers and their employees in real-time face-to-face and virtual interactions. They will use a range of data (including video, audio, eye-tracking) to identify the behavioural patterns that may alleviate or exacerbate feelings of loneliness resulting from manager-employee interactions. Access to lab space with cutting-edge eye-tracking and recording technology will be provided, as well as AI-supported software for data collection and processing. The PhD will therefore use primarily quantitative data with potential for deploying machine learning techniques in the analysis phase (e.g. using R analytics). The successful candidate will have a scholarly interest in behaviour, leadership, relationships and/or wellbeing, and an aptitude for mastering advanced quantitative methodologies.
International collaborator(s)
The project offers an opportunity to collaborate with researchers at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, including an extended research stay, supervised by the world-leading expert on workplace loneliness, Dr Sarah Wright. The student will also be provided with access to research facilities, seminars, and data collection during their visit.
In addition, the student will be a core member of the research team based in the Institute of Work Psychology based at Sheffield University Management School, involving Dr Anna Topakas, who is an expert in organisational leadership and behaviours, Dr Nicola Thomas, an expert in emotions, eye-tracking and the use of machine learning for research, and Dr Sarah Wright (University of Canterbury, NZ ).The candidate will contribute to theoretical and empirical projects as part of this team, with opportunities to co-author scholarly works and receive mentoring in developing their academic skills and knowledge.
Lead supervisor
For informal enquiries, please contact Dr Anna Topakas.
Research centre
This research centre combines scientific quality with practical relevance. Their emphasis is on the effects of work on employee wellbeing and performance.
- Labour Organising in Logistics Warehouses: The case of South Yorkshire and Inland Empire
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Project description
The primary ambition and overarching objective of this PGR project is to understand how trade unions and workers can achieve better conditions in global logistics warehouses. This is important for three main reasons. First, logistics and warehouse and parcel delivery services play a central role in the current processes of capital accumulation, given the growing importance of just-in-time chains of distribution (Bonacich and Wilson, 2008). Second, working conditions in logistics warehouses tend to be extremely poor. The workforce is often fragmented, exploited and hired via fixed-term work contracts, outsourcing and (bogus) self-employment (Barnes and Ali, 2021). Moreover, as most workers are migrants or belong to minority groups, these poor working conditions are accompanied by discriminatory, hostile and xenophobic treatment (Alimahomed-Wilson, 2019). Third, although there is agreement on warehouse workers holding a strategic position in contemporary capitalism - being employed at ‘chokepoints’ (Wilson and Ness, 2018) -, many logistics warehouses in the UK and beyond have not witnessed the emergence of labour organising initiatives (Dörflinger et al., 2021).
This PGR project will study the specific conditions faced by warehouse workers, the challenges that trade unions and workers face to organise, and the practices that can make these organising efforts successful. The project will provide an international comparative focus on South Yorkshire and Inland Empire in Southern California. This research project will be conducted using qualitative research methods. The successful candidate will have a social science background with expertise in work and employment as well as a strong aptitude for qualitative research design.
International collaborator(s)
The research project will be undertaken in collaboration with the Labor Center at the University of California, Riverside. The University of California, Riverside is currently expanding its labour research and teaching offering at the new Inland Empire Labor and Community Research Center with a focus on the study of labour policy, jobs, and economic and social impacts of labour in the logistics sector. The project will involve a 4-6 month placement based in Southern California for qualitative fieldwork to be undertaken in the Inland Empire. UC Riverside’s Professor of Sociology Ellen Reese will provide research support and will assist in building contacts with relevant trade unions and gaining access to work sites for research purposes. In addition, the student will be provided with office space at the university and will be welcome to attend academic events and classes in the Sociology Department and Labor Studies programme.
Lead supervisor
For informal enquiries, please contact Dr Katy Fox-Hodess.
Research centre
The Centre for Decent Work's experts produce ground-breaking research on a wide range of issues related to decent work and workplaces.
- Understanding changes in wellbeing at work through the lens of adaptation theory
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Project description
Wellbeing at work is a dynamic construct and to foster wellbeing in organizations, we need to understand how it evolves and identify its change trajectories. However, there is a scarcity of theories in Work and Organizational Psychology that explain how wellbeing at work develops. This omission limits our understanding of the dynamic nature of wellbeing at work. Adaptation Theory (AT) from Personality Psychology offers insights into this. It suggests that both positive and negative experiences influence wellbeing levels, however, AT also suggests that after some time and once individuals have adapted to the new situation, they return to their baseline wellbeing level.
The goal of this project is to determine whether AT can explain daily fluctuations in wellbeing at work. The project will use a mixed methods approach. IDOCAL researchers have conducted a diary study, collecting data from 129 workers across ten consecutive workdays, measuring wellbeing both before and after work each day. The day reconstruction method was employed to locate significant work-related events influencing wellbeing trajectories. The selected candidate will investigate how personality traits, coping mechanisms, and job resources affect these trajectories using discontinuous growth modelling and/or other appropriate statistical analyses.
Additionally, the student will conduct a qualitative interview study to understand the contextual factors and the underlying mechanisms behind trajectories identified in the diary study. Thematic analysis will be used to analyse this data. Key skills required are knowledge of qualitative methods and advanced knowledge of quantitative research methods and experience of work psychology.
International collaborator(s)
The successful candidate is offered a unique opportunity to work on a fully funded PhD project in collaboration with the Research Institute of Personnel Psychology, Organizational Development and Quality of Working Life (IDOCAL), University of Valencia and Sheffield University Management School. The PhD student will gain experience conducting statistical analyses using an existing dataset and conduct all phases of a qualitative study (recruitment, data collection, and qualitative analyses, as well as using theoretical frameworks for mixed methods approaches) collaboratively with the IDOCAL’s team and Sheffield.
The PhD student leading the project will spend up to 12 months at the University of Valencia, collaborating with the IDOCAL team. They will have access to necessary resources including libraries, computing facilities, and support services. They will participate in the Centre’s activities, have access to the existing quantitative data sets, and be supported for fieldwork for the qualitative part of the study.
Lead supervisor
For informal enquiries, please contact Professor Karina Nielsen.
Research centre
This research centre combines scientific quality with practical relevance. Their emphasis is on the effects of work on employee wellbeing and performance.
- Unravelling the role of necessity-driven circular business models for an environmentally and socially just transition to circular economy
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Project description
The Circular Economy (CE) policy agenda is mainly focusing on mature industrial models rather than on lower- and middle-income economies. However, identifying successful necessity-driven circular business models is important as they can still reduce resource consumption and extend product life cycles, while also generating jobs and addressing pressing needs for low-income strata of societies. Previous research has shown that many elements of a necessity-driven CE might even go beyond the borders of informal and precarious communities and be incorporated in more formalised settings.
Within this context, the project’s aim is to identify the requirements of successful necessity-driven circular business models in the Global South, and understand how these models can learn from and contribute to circular business models in the Global North by upscaling entrepreneurial income generation activities, filling institutional voids and informing policy making in both contexts.
The successful candidate will have a strong aptitude for qualitative research design including ethnographic case study, focus group, interviews and critical discourse analysis and will likely have a background in management, sociology, economics or a related discipline.
International collaborator(s)
The project is based on a collaboration between Sheffield University Management School (SUMS, United Kingdom) and University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil). The project benefits from the support of several industrial organisations and community partners which have been already working with both SUMS and USP.
Lead supervisor
For informal enquiries, please contact Professor Andrea Genovese.
Research centre
Operations Management and Decision Sciences
The centre carries out research across three main themes: Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Sustainable Production, and Information Management and Decisions Sciences.
- ‘You can’t unionise robots’: Exploring the impact of technology on the nature of work in the logistics sector in the US and UK
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Project description
Growing research has highlighted the impact of digitalisation on the logistics sector has resulted in increasing levels of work degradation through the implementation of ‘digital Taylorism’, close surveillance and monitoring of worker activity, coupled with draconian performance management regimes (Alimahomed-Wilson and Reese 2021, Moore and Newsome 2018). To date, however, there is limited analysis of these developments and connections at different points of the logistics supply chain (i.e. warehousing and parcel delivery) as well as across different regions.
This project will focus upon the impact of digitalisation on logistics workers in the UK and the US focussing on warehouse and parcel delivery workers. More concretely it aims to uncover:
- How does technology impact upon the labour process in relation to; skill utilisation; autonomy and discretion; surveillance and monitoring; working time and performance management across different parts of the logistics supply chain?
- How does race and gender shape the experience of work for logistics workers in these two regions?
- What role does ‘place’ play in shaping the experiences of workers in the logistics sector?
The project will comprise of qualitative research methods embracing case studies of logistics organisations in both warehousing and parcel delivery. The case studies will be located in key regions in the UK and US which are dominated by logistics employment notably South Yorkshire and the Inland Empire in the US. The successful candidate will have a background in work and employment with a strong aptitude for qualitative research design.
International collaborator(s)
The research project will be undertaken in collaboration with the Labor Center at the University of California, Riverside. The University of California, Riverside is currently expanding its labour research and teaching offering at the new Inland Empire Labor and Community Research Center with a focus on the study of labour policy, jobs, and economic and social impacts of labour in the logistics sector. The project will involve a 4-6 month placement based in Southern California for qualitative fieldwork to be undertaken in the Inland Empire. UC Riverside’s Professor of Sociology Ellen Reese will provide research support and will assist in building contacts with relevant trade unions and gaining access to logistics industry employers and work sites for research purposes. In addition, the student will be provided with office space at the university and will be welcome to attend academic events and classes in the Sociology Department and Labor Studies programme.
Lead supervisor
For informal enquiries, please contact Professor Kirsty Newsome.
Research centre
The Centre for Decent Work's experts produce ground-breaking research on a wide range of issues related to decent work and workplaces.
