Doctoral study in Management

When you join us for your PhD in Management, you'll join a high-calibre research community and have the opportunity to publish papers, attend international conferences and develop your network in academia and industry.

        Why study with us?
The University of Auckland consistently ranks in the top 100 globally and is New Zealand’s No. 1 university. (QS World University Rankings)

The Business School at The University of Auckland is part of the 1% of Business Schools worldwide with Triple Crown accreditation.(AACSB International, EFMD-EQUIS, and AMBA)

The university hosts more researchers in business and economics than any other New Zealand university. This expertise provides opportunities for original and significant contributions to knowledge in various disciplines.

Students have opportunities to connect with professionals from their discipline through networking event, fostering collaboration and industry connections.

The Business School offers state-of-the-art facilities, including dedicated workspaces for full-time PhD students.

Doctoral candidates receive annual Postgraduate Research Student Support (PReSS) funding to cover research expenses.

The Business School Careers Centre assists students with career planning through skills workshops, employer interactions and individual support.

Research opportunities

We welcome research proposals in topics relating to our key research specialisations:

Leadership and organisational effectiveness:
How managers understand leadership and how they can become more effective in leadership roles.
Workforce strategies, employee wellbeing and workplace performance:
How organisations adopt work and employment practices and how these practices affect employee wellbeing and organisational performance.
The management of distributed work in global firms:
How teams operating across borders can become more effective.
The role of labour standards in global regulation and international trade:
How domestic employment relations are influenced by international employment standards.
Cross-cultural and diversity management:
How managers and business organisations interact with different cultures and societies, and how they can become more effective in diverse cultural and social contexts.
Corporate governance relationships:
The behavioural aspects of boards of directors and ensuring good governance.
Business sustainability:
The challenges organisations face to become more sustainable and the ways in which business leaders can help them respond.

Our people

Pursue your topic with us and benefit from exceptional standards of support and supervision from internationally recognised researchers.

Professor Kenneth Husted (Head of Department)
Special interests: Corporate entrepreneurship, innovation and research management, knowledge management, management of R&D and research commercialisation

Professor Peter Boxall
Special interests: Strategic HRM, work and wellbeing (how job quality and the work environment affect employee wellbeing)

Associate Professor Brigid Carroll
Special interests: Identity work in organisations, critical leadership theory, practice, and development, narrative/discourse theory and methodology, transboundary collaboration and system change

Professor Prithviraj Chattopadhyay
Special interests: Relational demography and diversity, managerial cognition, and employment externalisation

Professor Gordon Cheung
Special interests: Structural equation modelling, moderated mediation, latent interaction

Dr Helen Delaney
Special interests: Sociology of work and critical perspectives towards organisations

Associate Professor Ljiljana Erakovic
Special interests: Corporate governance, boards of directors, governance in not-for-profit organisations, organisation theory, organisational design, privatisation and public sector management

Associate Professor Carla Houkamau
Special interests: Diversity management, inter-cultural communication, cross-cultural management

Dr Barbara Plester
Special interests: Workplace humour, promoting fun at work, organisational food rituals, organisational misbehaviour, virtual teams, emotions of connectivity

Dr Peter Smith
Special interests: Knowledge intensive firms, strategy-as-practice, theories of practice

Dr Rachel Wolfgramm

Special interests: Economies of wellbeing, status and sustainability in consumption

Past research topics

The influence of mobile information and communication technologies and user-device interactions on workplace relationships, supervised by Dr Barbara Plester and Dr Helen Delaney
Emotions in organisations: role of emotional regulation in work-life balance attitudes and behaviours, supervised by Dr Rachel Wolfgramm and Prof Gordon Cheung
Exploring the social construction of 'Employee Engagement' through discourse analysis, supervised by Associate Professor Brigid Carroll and Dr Helen Delaney
Corporate governance and its effect on family and non-family corporations in Vietnam, supervised by Associate Professors Ljiljana Erakovic and Christina Stringer
Abusive coaching and subordinates' skill development among chefs: A curvilinear relationship, supervised by Professors Prithviraj Chattopadhyay and Elizabeth George
The Impact of Talent Management Practices on Psychological Contract in the Organizations: A Framework for Multigenerational Diversity, supervised by Professors James Sun and Gordon Cheung
How does executive coaching influence gendered discourses and practices involved in the processes of female professional identity construction, supervised by Dr Helen Delaney and Professor Nigel Haworth
The predictors and consequence of work engagement: What role dose job crafting play? Supervised by Professor Peter Boxall, Professor Gordon Cheung, and Dr Ann Hutchison