Traditional PhD Information Technology and Operations Management

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The College of Business offers a Ph.D. degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Information Technology and Operations Management. Admission to the program is restricted to students who show exceptionally high promise for mastering the conceptual and analytic tools required for doctoral study in business.

The main goal of the PhD in ITOM is to develop and train future scholars with an ability to teach and conduct independent scholarly research. Our program achieves this through a combination of rigorous coursework and research projects. First, the coursework helps PhD students to obtain fundamental and trendy knowledge in various areas of information systems (IS) and operations/supply chain management (O/SCM). At the same time, it offers students important insights to develop the new research topics of their interests. Our coursework also includes classes on various research methodologies and data analysis techniques. They cover from traditional statistical approaches to recent big data approaches. By doing so, our PhD program provides students with substantial individual flexibility in terms of acquiring the necessary theoretical and methodological skills to become a scholarly leader in our field.

Students collaborate with our faculty members closely on research projects that targeting the wide- ranging impacts on academia and industry. In addition, students are strongly encouraged to present their research results in major national or international conferences, and finally publish their findings in well-known premier journals. Lastly, students have an opportunity to build up the teaching experience by independently teaching one or more classes.

Expected Areas of Dissertation Research

The PhD in ITOM is designed as more IS oriented along with O/SCM as a niche of IS. This focus is reflected and emphasized in the process of the PhD student admission and the dissertation. However, the realm can expand as the program grows. By publishing articles and serving as mini-track coordiantors for major conferences, our ITOM faculty has developed solid research streams in several areas, including:

• Cybersecurity management
• Business analytics
• Healthcare analytics
• Sustainable supply chain and logistics
• Port management
• Fintech, Blockchain-enabled business models
• Cryptocurrencies and digital money
• Crowdfunding
• Smart tourism 

These are notable and important topics in the current business environments. For example, the importance of cybersecurity and business analytics is getting bigger in both IS and O/SCM areas (Sikora 2019). The scholarly demands for research and teaching are also growing accordingly.

The research results of our faculty have been published in top-tier journals including MIS Quarterly, Journal of Operations Management, Information Systems Research, Production and Operations Management, etc. Therefore, our faculty provides scholarly trainings to students in those areas to develop their dissertation, and continue the research productivity and societal impacts. However, based on the specific demands and the emerging research trends, students’ dissertation topics can be extended to other related areas.