Find out more about studying Integrated PhD Management at University of Essex? We've gathered all the key details, entry requirements, modules, fees, and more. Take the next step by booking an open day to explore it for yourself.
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD / DPhil
University of Essex
Full Time
Oct 2027
4 Year
Our Integrated PhD Management (at our Colchester Campus), provides a route to doctoral study if you do not have a Masters degree, or have little to no research training. It enables you to spend your first year completing a full-time Masters-level qualification, which will equip you with the business knowledge and research skills needed to begin PhD study the following year. Your PhD will then be studied full time, over the next three years.Our PhD programmes are designed to foster the business leaders and researchers of the future. Our graduates use creativity, innovation and ethical awareness to meet the many challenges facing the international business world.Our doctoral graduates have secured roles in academia at some of the best international universities, as well as organisations in the public and private sectors. Recent examples include careers with Leeds University Business School, Cambridge Education, EY (Ernst and Young) and public sector roles around the world.
Research skills are critical to a postgraduate research degree, regardless of the topic you are exploring. This module will reinforce the research methods and skills developed through your previous study and will address philosophical issues underlying management and business research and explain how to select research strategies and designs. It will offer a comprehensive view of methods of data collection and analysis to support the quality and value of research outcomes.
Your dissertation is the culmination of your course where you apply knowledge gained to produce an extended independent piece of work. You generate an original idea, analyse literature and current knowledge and produce a coherent argument that shows your ability to relate theory to practice. Your dissertation will help you develop vital skills for the workplace, as well as the ability to analyse real problems through an academic lens. You are assigned a supervisor for the duration of your project.
Develop the skills needed to produce a rigorous and critical literature review at postgraduate level. This module explores key theoretical, philosophical and methodological approaches to research, with a strong focus on literature searching, evaluation and synthesis. You’ll strengthen your ability to critically analyse academic texts and build methodological and epistemological insight to support advanced research projects and dissertations.
This module is designed to build on your knowledge and understanding of research in management, marketing, accounting and organisation studies and to develop your skills in studying organisational life. Its aim is to draw together insights from the philosophy of the social sciences, methodology and advanced qualitative research methods in order to develop an informed and reflexive understanding of research design and practice. A key part of your learning process on this module will develop your ability to connect an informed understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of organisational research with your planned methodological approach and methods of data collection and analysis. Underpinning the module is an understanding of the research process not as a unidirectional, linear trajectory but as a complex and multi-dimensional back and forth process through which ideas evolve that coalesce into a research design that is specific to particular research projects and researchers and which enables those projects to proceed ethically and credibly.
This module introduces the methods of research in the fields of marketing. You explore a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, using examples and case studies to determine the suitability of different types of research in particular situations. You gain understanding of research ethics and acquire the skills to organise and undertake a research project.
