PhD Courses in Denmark

This doctoral seminar is aimed at 'early' doctoral students in the field of business and social science. The course consists of two parts.

Part ONE (8-10 September 2025) aims to provide you with an overview of research and science, the path to becoming an academic scholar, and practical guidance on conducting scientific work. It commences with a series of sessions on classical philosophy of science, addressing fundamental questions about research, including its purpose and potential, the role of theory and its empirical foundations, and the significance of scientific communities. This foundational knowledge equips you with a comprehensive understanding of the essence of science and research. Following this, practical workshops guide students through the stages of their own research, encompassing the establishment of the theoretical framework for their PhD, selection of research questions, and methodological considerations.

Part TWO (8-10 December 2025) elaborates on part ONE by providing additional room for a focused discussion with regard to the concept and importance of theory in business research. Thus, the course offers PhD students tools to build theory and insights into the concepts of validating theory. As such, we offer students guidance to link research questions to theory, for defining constructs, thinking through relationships and processes that link constructs, and deriving new theoretical models (or building on existing ones) based on those relationships. We seek to illustrate how to use analyses as well as grounded and emergent approaches to theory construction. Students are enabled to develop ideas from across theoretical and analytical levels as well as from neighboring research fields. An explicit aim of the course is to provide students with a deeper appreciation of theory-building in order to support them in crafting impactful research papers and grant applications.

Finally, as a secondary aim, part TWO of the course strives to create an 'esprit de corps' among the students and thus to highlight possible venues for research collaboration across the different research fields. Therefore, while students learn about different formats of research outputs, processes, and theory validations relative to the several specific research fields, they will also be exposed to the potential and advantages of cross-disciplinary research.

Learning objectives:

After the course, the PhD student will

• understand what makes social “science” a form of scientific research
• understand the complex relation between empirical and theoretical insights
• know how to acquire scientific insights and assess them critically
• have some understanding of the source of scientific insights
• have an idea of how to deal with scientific communities
• be able to position his/her research in a social science research field
• have reflected on and clarified his/her research question
• know what makes a “good” literature review
• know how to develop a review of the literature (including citation-based reviews)
• have reflected on the fit between their research question, literature review and choice of method
• understand the role of scientific “communities” – and have an idea of how to manage them
• be able to identify and understand what constitutes a theory (including causality, assumptions etc.) and to distinguish theory from taxonomies, morphologies, colloquialisms etc.
• be able to develop own conceptual frameworks and mid-range theories
• be able to apply different theoretical lenses to an empirical problem in order to see how theory in the social sciences sometimes influences our conclusions

Evaluation/assessment
The course is based on a high level of student involvement. Students are expected to be thoroughly prepared and to take an active part in the presentation and discussion of the material. Given the high content-to-time ratio, teaching is based on lecturing, illustrations and discussions and its success is predicated on interactive student involvement. The assessment has the following parts:

• Each student is to submit an assignment (not longer than 1000 words) in which he/she works out the core ideas of one of the contemporary doctrines of philosophy of science and to give a 45-minute presentation in class
• Each student is to submit (by email) a 1500-word (max.) description of his/her doctoral work
• Participants are required to present their research attending especially to the theory foundation, the building and 'testing' of their PhD work (10 min. with a follow-up O&A session, 5 min.).

ECTS
5 ECTS points

Requirements (applicants from other departments/universities):

• The participant must be enrolled as a PhD student

Time and place
8-10 September 2025 (room: TBA) and 8-10 December 2025 (room: TBA). The course will take place at Aarhus University, Department of Management, Fuglesangs Allé 4, 8210 Aarhus V. 

Responsible/coordinators
Associate Professor Peter Kesting (Part One) and Professor Lars Frederiksen (Part Two), Department of Management, Aarhus BSS.

Application
No later than 1 July 2025 to: Lisbeth Widahl, Department of Management, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University, Fuglesangs Allé 4, DK-8210 Aarhus V (by email). Application form.
Please note that your application is binding. Applicants from the Department of Management will be given priority over applicants from other departments/universities.

Fee
Participants from other universities will be charged a fee that covers meals during the course (for more information, please contact Lisbeth Widahl). Participants are required to find their own accommodation.