The Doctoral Programme in Business Studies (DPBUSINESS) provides world-class business research expertise that transcends the traditional limits of the discipline.
Doctoral studies in business studies aim at familiarising the students with the research, theories and research methods in the field in a way which qualifies the students to prepare a licentiate thesis or a doctoral dissertation. Furthermore, students strengthen their knowledge in their specific specialisation fields. The doctoral programme encourages students to take an international approach: to participate in researcher exchanges, study in foreign universities, make presentations in international conferences, publish in international journals and become members of international researcher networks.
The Doctoral Programme in Business Studies in the University of Eastern Finland operates at Joensuu and Kuopio campuses. In the doctoral programme, doctoral students work on research projects that follows the research profile specified for both campuses and aim at the degree of Licentiate of Science (Economics and Business Administration) or Doctor of Science (Economics and Business Administration).
The director of the doctoral programme is Professor Juho Pesonen, and the coordinator is Amanuensis Jarmo Romppanen.
Research areas in the doctoral programme
The mission of the Business School emphasizes cross-disciplinary and internationally acknowledged approaches to research and teaching. Research is also aiming to conrtibute to the development of local business life and to the wellbeing of society as a whole. The common dominator of the research is the development, growth and internationalisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
One of our main objectives is to have more and better research articles published in prestigious journals. We encourage our personnel to build international networks through researcher exchange, conference participation and international research funding.
There are six fields within Business Studies for doctoral students to choose from:
- Innovation Management (Kuopio Campus)
- Service Management (Joensuu Campus)
- Accounting and Finance (Kuopio Campus)
- Business and Law (Joensuu Campus)
- International Business and Sales Management (Kuopio Campus)
- Tourism Marketing and Management (Joensuu Campus)
Research groups in UEF Business School
How to apply?
In the doctoral programme, doctoral students work on research projects that follows the research profile specified for both campuses and aim at the degree of Licentiate of Science (Economics and Business Administration) or Doctor of Science (Economics and Business Administration).
General instruction: dpbusiness@uef.fi
The fields of research, heads of the major (first on the list) and main supervisors:
International Business and Sales Management:
Service Management:
Business and Law::
Tourism Marketing and Management:
Juho Pesonen (head of the doctoral programme)
Innovation Management:
Accounting and Finance:
Admission requirements
These updated requirements are valid starting from Autumn 2021 admission.
The background requirement for eligibility for a doctoral study right is either a master degree in Business, other higher education level degree or an equivalent foreign degree that has been completed in an institute part of the official higher education of the country. The degree must also have included an advanced level thesis. The grade of the thesis or equivalent, as well as the overall grade of your advanced level studies must be at least “good” (GPA 3 on a scale of 0-4, Finnish grade 3/5 or equivalent). In addition, there are requirements for English language certification. Your research topic must fit into the focus areas of the main subject and all the other criteria must be met. These admission criteria have been described in the following sections.
Admission requirements concerning background education
The criteria for the eligibility of the study background has been described in the next applicant groups 1-4. The applicant’s study background must fill all the criteria mentioned in one of the groups to be eligible for doctoral studies. If the applicant is not eligible, they cannot be granted a doctoral study right.
If the major subject decides necessary, a qualified applicant must supplement their studies, for example, if they have graduated in other subject than the major subject that they are applying to or if the background degree is not in the field of business or if they do not possess sufficient competencies for completing a doctoral degree in the chosen major subject. The professor of the major determines whether supplementary studies are required or not and they must be completed before completing studies that are part of the doctoral degree. The maximum of supplementary studies is 60 ECTS. Supplementary studies must have an average grade of “good” (3/5 or equivalent).
Applicant groups
- Applicants with a Finnish Master’s degree in Economics and Business Administration or other field who have mainly achieved the grade good (cum laude approbator, 3/5 or equivalent) or higher for their pro gradu thesis or equivalent and the grade good (3/5 or equivalent) or higher for their major subject studies. If the grade is lower than this, it is possible for the applicant to be accepted through other merits (excellent research plan and/or previous peer reviewed publication).
- Applicants with a degree in a Finnish university of applied sciences and the degree includes a thesis. The thesis must be completed with the overall grade good (3/5 or equivalent) or higher and the average of the major subject studies must be good (3/5 or equivalent). If the grade is lower than this, it is possible for the applicant to be accepted through other merits (excellent research plan and/or previous peer reviewed publication).
- Applicants with a Finnish licentiate or doctoral degree in Business or other field.
- Applicants who have acquired a relevant degree abroad which, in the country in question, provides eligibility for further university studies and for pursuing a doctorate. Applicants who have obtained their qualifications abroad must demonstrate their competence to pursue a research project by detailing their major studies (that include a Master’s thesis or other similar study project that corresponds to a pro gradu thesis) for which mainly at least the grade good (GPA of all studies must be at least 3 on a scale of 0-4 and additionally with a degree completed in other than an EU country, GMAT must be at least 600 points) has been awarded and which have been completed before applying to the doctoral programme. If the Master’s thesis or other study project has been written in a language other than Finnish, Swedish or English, an English summary must be attached to the application. Applicants with a degree completed abroad must also attach their original thesis in PDF-form on the application form. Major subjects will also check the thesis with a plagiarism detection program.
Other admission requirements for doctoral study right
- The proposed research topic must be scientifically and practically relevant and connect to the research strategy and focus areas of the pursued major subject (the links to research groups can be found on our webpage). The applicant must select their major subject when applying and the applicant must have the competencies and readiness for doctoral studies and undertaking a dissertation. The major evaluates the competences during admission and the requirements vary between subjects.
Required competencies in major subjects:
- International Business and Sales Management: high scientific level of research plan and theoretical contribution in the field of International Business and Sales Management, high goal orientation of publication plan concerning international peer-reviewed journal publications.
- Accounting and Finance: The requirement is that the applicant has taken enough courses in Accounting and/or Finance. The applicant should also demonstrate knowledge relating to research methodologies relevant for the planned doctoral dissertation through previous thesis or equivalent.
- Service Management; Innovation Management, Business and Law; Tourism Marketing and Management: it must be apparent from the research plan that the applicant has familiarized themselves with previous research through which is able to indicate a justified research gap, the research problem must be well-justified and defined, the applicant must have good knowledge of a method that suits the research problem.
- There must be enough supervision resources to be allocated for the proposed thesis. The major subject which the applicant selects when applying to a doctoral study right will decide the availability of supervision resources.
- When applying for a doctoral study right through student admission, a maximum of 5 page long research plan is required (reference list is not included into the maximum). The plan must be of high quality and e.g. the following aspects will be evaluated: what is the scientific contribution of the proposed research topic, how realistic and coherent the research plan is and how it is executed, acknowledgement of the research ethical questions.
Contents of the plan:
- starting points and theoretical basis of the research, previous research
- aims of the research, research tasks and questions
- research methods and data, administration of data
- working plan, working plan for part of the tasks. Especially in article dissertations it is important to describe what kind of parts the research will be conducted in and published (when applying to positions, a more detail description is required but when applying to a doctoral study right, it is not required to have a comprehensive plan of all the articles)
- schedule and funding plan
- publication plan
- evaluation of opportunities to exploit the results of the research, societal significance of the research results
- Proficiency in English.
If the applicant fulfils at least one of the following requirements, a separate language test is not required but the applicant is to prove their English proficiency with the applicable degree certificate and the transcript of their academic record:
- English as foreign language included in at least a Bachelor-level degree conducted in Nordic country (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) or in an EU/EEA country.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree conducted in English language in a Nordic country (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) or in an EU/EEA country.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree conducted in English language in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom or the United States.
The applicants are to prove their language skills in English as follows if they do not fill the aforementioned requirements:
English language test:
TOEFL paper-based: Total score 600 and Writing 4.0
TOEFL Internet-based: Total Score 100 and Writing 22
IELTS (Academic): Overall Score 6.5 and Writing 5.5
PTE (Pearson Test of English), min. 59 points
C1 Advanced (CAE), pass levels A, B or C / C2 Proficiency (CPE), pass levels A, B, C or level C1 Certificate
The right to pursue doctoral studies does not include funding or a contract of employment at the University. However, full-time doctoral students need to look for funding to cover their costs of living and potential research costs (travel costs, research material etc.).
Doctoral studies can be funded for example by external funding from a fund or by studying part-time while at work. Occasionally there are early stage researcher positions open for application at the UEF. Doctoral students apply for funding themselves and there are no automatic scholarships or positions received.
Read more about funding options of doctoral studies on Kamu Student handbook.
Application period
You can apply to the Doctoral Programme in Business Studies twice a year: by the end of October and by the end of April.
What is Studyinfo.fi?
Studyinfo.fi is the official national admissions portal with all the up-to-date information about study programmes leading to a degree in Finland.
Studies
The doctoral dissertation demonstrates the student’s in-depth knowledge of the field of research, related fields and the philosophy of science. Furthermore, the dissertation demonstrates his or her ability to apply the methods of scientific research in practice, both independently, and critically in his or her field of research as well as independently to generate new information.
One of the following can be accepted as a doctoral dissertation:
- A separate piece of research (monograph). A monograph is a work based on the research project by the doctoral student. It is a coherent and independent study and should contain the data and methodology used and the results as a whole.
- At least three articles dealing with a same set of problems published or accepted for publication in scientific journals applying a referee procedure. Peer reviewing refers to an assessment process carried out by the scientific community where an article or part of a collection of articles undergoes an advance assessment by an independent expert. The review must be verifiable. At least one of the articles has to be published and two accepted for publication. The other articles may be manuscripts to be published. In case the articles are joint publications, a doctoral student must be the correspondent writer of at least in two of them. An article electronically pre-published by a scientific series is regarded as published.
In business an essay-based dissertation can also be approved. The essay-based dissertation comprises at least three published or unpublished independent entities dealing with the same set of research problems. Some of these entities may be scientific articles or other publications and unpublished essays.
In addition to the articles or essays, the dissertation must include an introduction and summary which compiles the contents of the articles. These may be placed at the beginning of the dissertation, or the introduction may be placed at the beginning and the summary at the end of the dissertation.
If the articles or essays are joint publications, a doctoral candidate must present a written account of their own contribution to those publications when requesting a public defence. A joint publication may be included in a maximum of two different dissertations.
The studies towards the degree of a Licentiate of Science or a Doctor of Science to be completed in the doctoral programme consist of a licentiate thesis or a doctoral dissertation, transferable skills studies (10 ECTS) and subject-specific doctoral studies (30 ECTS); the total scope of the studies is 40 ECTS.
Research Seminar (in major) (3 ECTS) and 5210911 Introduction to Business Research and Theory (3 ECTS) are compulsory courses. The seminar and other courses are held in English if there are participants who do not speak Finnish. Students who do not have the degree of Master of Science (Economics and Business Administration) may be required to complete supplementary studies (between 15 and 30 ECTS). These studies are also specified in the doctoral study plan.
You can find information for different phases in the doctoral education on Kamu Student handbook:
- Doctoral education at the University of Eastern Finland
- Starting doctoral education
- Doctoral curriculum and study requirements
- Internationalisation in doctoral education
- Guidance and support in doctoral education
- Support for doctoral research
- Funding of doctoral education
- Wellbeing of doctoral researcher
- Permission for public examination and pre-examination of doctoral dissertation
- Publishing of doctoral dissertation
UEF Business School grants travel grants for seminar, conference, and summer school costs for doctoral researchers.
The grants are meant for doctoral researchers conducting their postgraduate studies in the field of business at the University of Eastern Finland, with a doctoral degree as their targeted degree. The grants can be awarded for participating in seminars, conferences and summer schools related to these postgraduate studies, on the condition that the doctoral researcher presents their own work at the seminar or conference or completes the summer school according to its requirements, the participation supports the student’s postgraduate studies, and that the supervisor recommends participation. The grant may be used to cover the travel and accommodation costs as well as the participation fee of the seminar, conference, or summer school.
The amount of the grant is a maximum of 2500 euros. During one calendar year, the doctoral researcher can be awarded a grant once. The grant can be used to participate in several different seminars or conferences. One application may be used to apply for several different seminars or conferences.
The doctoral researcher must discuss with their supervisor, which seminars, conferences or summer schools are most suitable from the perspective of the postgraduate studies. A recommendation from a supervisor must be attached to the grant application, showing that participation in the seminar or conference at hand is necessary to further the postgraduate studies of the applicant. This recommendation can be given via email (a separate statement is not needed). If the recipient of the grant receives funding for their research from some other quarter, this other funding must be spent first. The grant awarded by the department is secondary in relation to other funding the applicant might have. Travel grants are meant for doctoral researchers who are not employed by the university.
The free-form scholarship application must include:
- Personal details (i.e. name, profession, social security number, place of tax assessment, address).
- Bank account details.
- Information on current work place and duties.
- Details about the event/events for which the grant is needed as well as a short account on the planned presentation by the student.
- The amount of the grant applied for and the grounds on which it should be awarded (a cost breakdown).
- A short clarification on the current state of the applicant’s doctoral thesis and a description of the importance of the grant in furthering this work.
- An estimate of when the doctoral dissertation defence is planned to take place.
The applicant must also attach to the application:
- A report on the completion of studies specified in the postgraduate study plan and a schedule for completing possible missing studies
- Recommendation from a supervisor as to why participating in the event/events is beneficial (an email is sufficient)
The decision of awarding the grants will be made by the head of UEF Business School. The application period is ongoing. The applications for the grants must be delivered via email to the department’s financial secretary Paula Savolainen (paula.j.savolainen@uef.fi).