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DOCTORAL ISSUES

Life After Doctoral Programs: A Retrospective on the First DSI Doctoral Consortium Class

I n 1983, the Decision Sciences Institute (then known as the American Institute for Decision Sciences, or AIDS) held its first Doctoral Consortium as part of the annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Its objectives were to recognize outstanding doctoral students, make them more of a part of our community, and support their career development. Although it was the explicitly stated intention of the Board of Directors that the doctoral consortium not be the traditional type administered by other professional associations, the Board was probably not prepared for an event where participants wore ribbons bearing the designation of ``Rookie of the Year.'' Bill Berry, who was at Wake Forest at the time, and I had the privilege of coordinating this event.

As part of this search for differentiation and a genuine fit with what the Institute stood for as an organization back then, the requirements for participation included evidence of superior performance in both teaching and research, as measured by a panel's evaluations of:

1. A recent proposal, working paper or some other similar piece of research accomplishment;
2. A five-page, maximum, discussion of the candidate's perception of the major questions that exist at present in their field; and
3. A five-page discussion of their perception of the major pedagogical improvements needed in their field.

Eighteen participants were invited to attend the first doctoral consortium. They came from: Arizona State (2), Cincinnati, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina - Chapel Hill (2), Purdue, Rutgers, South Carolina, Texas at Arlington (2), Texas at Austin, Virginia Tech (2), and Virginia. The program was devoted to building traditional academic careers, and the program included panels on employer-school selection (a panel of deans), research and publication planning (journal editors), and teaching strategies. I think that, at the time, we all felt that it was the making of a good beginning.

Today, 13 years later, it is interesting to see what has happened to that class and what we might learn as a result. At the suggestion of Ann Marucheck, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the coordinator of DSI's 1996 Doctoral Consortium, I undertook a very informal survey of the participants we could find from the first doctoral consortium (nine responded to our inquiry). What follows is my interpretation of that survey. I'd like to stress that this is my interpretation, because I have chosen to relate in prose form what I was told in a variety of formats. There is also more than a modicum of my own opinion and judgement embedded in these interpretations.

At the time of my follow-up, we had lost touch with six participants (ultimately, only four); two had gone into industry after brief periods in academics, and ten had gone onto building academic careers. If you look at their present positions, somewhere between four and six are presently employed in institutions that would generally be considered to be big-time academic research institutions. This is not a bad hit-rate out of the original 18, especially if you recall the statistics on the sociology of publishing, which finds that only a very small percentage of graduate Ph.Ds actually publish more than one article after graduation.

As for jobs, the class of 1983 has held 2+ jobs after being out of their doctoral programs for 13 years. All but one are associate professors (the one is a full professor). It does appear, on the basis of fragmentary information (which, of course, is true about everything that I'm saying here), that those individuals who are presently at big-time research institutions have done little or no job switching over their careers.

It is also clear, 13 years later, that those who believed they would have traditional careers were badly mistaken. What we couldn't (or didn't) foresee then was that history, as we knew it, was about to undergo step-function change: to fracture, in fact, along a number of dimensions. To quote Francis Fukiyama, we were at the beginning of a period that would mark the end of history: between 1983 and 1996, we were all to witness, among other things: the end of the Cold War; the microprocessor revolution; AIDS; globalization; the birth of the European Union; the rise of China; mass-customization and the challenging of Industrial Revolution models of how the world works; and the Internet Revolution. The world around us has changed significantly: these are each profound discontinuities! Yet, the question that is raised by any such retrospective has got to be: how have we, as a profession, changed in response?

In 1983, there were well-established ground rules that governed our profession:

• High visibility research schools are the preferred launching-pads for career starts.
• ``Focus! Focus! Focus!'' Develop a narrow but deep publications record until you get tenure.
• Avoid anything that diverts your attention from publishing (including executive education, consulting, administration, overseas activities, etc.).
• ``Numbers (publications) are everything.'' You publish to stay, and you publish to leave.
• Only after you are tenured can you afford to do activities not directly related to building your research record.
• Incremental additions to established paradigms are the preferred route to success.

Yet, if we look at the experiences of the class of 1983, we see some modest discomfort with these rules. Among the things that have surprised the original participants were:

• The continuing ambiguity about what constitutes research productivity.
• The fact that there is not enough time to do everything.
• That teaching was actually enjoyable (respondants were surprised and a bit reluctant to admit this).
• A failure within our profession and its institutions to practice what we preach in class.
• The dwindling opportunities within the academic job market. How exciting the profession can be!
• The possibility that there existed a wide range of formats and venues for teaching beyond that which were covered in their traditional Ph.D programs.

While there is an almost endearing sense of innocence in many of these remarks, it is also somewhat troubling that there is perhaps too little angst over the gap that is growing between our professional agendas and the world around us. We can see some traces of it in the comments relating to too little time and new formats and venues, but surprisingly, not as much as we might have expected, given that we are living in the midst of hypercompetition (not just teaching it).

The reality is that our entire value-chain is undergoing upheaval. The end-users of our product, for example, are changing: just look at the demographics of who is attending our courses and providing business-school revenues. The spatial dimensions of our roles, in the midst of a world-wide demand for management education, have left the confines of the traditional classroom far behind. More and more of us are finding ourselves in venues, and with audiences, we never ever expected to be working with.

In the face of such discontinuous change among the constituents that we serve, would it not be unreasonable to expect that our entire value-chain would not also be changing? By this I mean our idea-development (with the demands for new topics of inquiry to match the changing world around us), idea-packaging (content development and its changing emphasis on cross-functionality, and the increased strategic and international perspectives that our customers are demanding), and delivery systems (moving from hard copy such as articles, textbooks, cases, and lectures to more ethereal modes such as the Internet and remote learning).

Our profession is under siege; we are inundated with new opportunities and new challenges. If what we teach in our basic corporate strategy courses is correct, then it is no longer safe to rest secure in traditional academic roles. While a few will always be able to survive in what could ultimately become a nostalga-niche in the global idea-market, for most of us -- and our academic institutions -- the world we face today is very different from the world we prepared people for in 1983. It might help, therefore, to review what lessons the class of '83 has actually learned -- lessons that can be passed onto the next generation of entrants into our professional community.

• Recognize that a Ph.D. program might not truly represent life in the real world, or life as you want it.
• This profession is all about change. You need to be involved in making these changes.
• Balance life with work. There are more opportunities to spend your time than you have time to spend.

On a more tactical level, the class of '83 also had some lessons to share with newer faculty:

• It is easier to be one of the more research- oriented faculty at a teaching school than to be one of the least research-oriented faculty at a research school.
• No matter how good a friend your department chair is, he/she sees you first and foremost in terms of teaching slots and service positions.
• Attend professional meetings and network.
• Strive to do what makes you happy, don't just follow the model.

In many ways, there is a strong resonance among the experiences of this group and the young managers that John Kotter traced in The New Rules, specifically with respect to the growing emphasis on globalization, change, and entrepreneurship. Most important, however, is that the class of 1983 has been successful, despite what we did, or didn't do, to them in the doctoral consortium: the prestige-school rate is roughly 25%, 13 years after the event; several recognizable names have emerged from within the group; and most most everyone who reported back has worked-out a professional arrangement that they are comfortable with. It has not been easy to balance life with work, but most report that they are satisfied with what has worked out for them.

Decision Line, March 1997, 28(2)