From Doctoral Student To Faculty Member: Ph.D. Project Alumnis Evaluation Of Their Preparedness

Abstract

In response to the important issues regarding diversity in business schools and corporate America, the KPMG Foundation established the PhD Project. The PhD Project helps business professionals and recent college graduates earn doctoral degrees in business disciplines and join business school faculty. While the PhD Project has helped increase the number of minority faculty members in business schools, it may be helpful to gather insights from the recent PhD alumni who have received support from the PhD Project. Our study examines attitudes about preparedness of PhD Project alums for their first faculty position after completing their PhD program. Results show that PhD Project alumni and majority PhD alumni (alumni not associated with the PhD Project) felt they were prepared for their first faculty position, but they were not significantly different in their evaluation in most respects. However, to our surprise, majority PhD alumni felt they were better prepared for research than PhD Project alumni. This difference was significant and further analyses showed that younger faculty and those in the ethnic majority were better prepared for research. Both groups considered themselves well prepared for research and teaching. Neither group was as optimistic about being prepared for service responsibilities and the academic climate or politics of an academic career. Our findings show that the PhD Project is necessary to help ensure that minority faculty members are adequately prepared for research and their academic careers.