Last June, I obtained my doctoral degree (PhD) at the Faculty of Business and Economics (FBE). It was the end of a journey that began almost ten years ago when I started as a master’s student at the Antwerp Management School (AMS).
After graduating at AMS, I stayed on as program manager and later I moved to research. Unable to secure a scholarship or permanent position as a researcher, I depended on several FBE professors for funding – for that, I will always be grateful. Over the years, I’ve worked as a project researcher for AMS, FBE and also the Jheronimus Academy of Data Science (JADS) in the Netherlands. In the meanwhile, my own doctoral research slowly progressed.
Getting a PhD this way is a path less explored by PhD students
This is mostly because there is little job security. In my case, I was hired, fired, re-hired, quit, left and came back, but I was always able to work on two or three projects at one institute or another, and usually I worked for two institutions at the same time.
Doing research on so many different projects also has its bright sides. First, I collaborated with several professors and colleagues who taught me how to approach a topic from different angles. Each time, I felt like a sponge being dipped in another bucket of water, soaking up new knowledge and experience. Second, I easily got access to companies and organizations who expected me to do something meaningful with their data, preferably as quickly as possible.
“Compared to an academic assistant who often feels like running a lonely marathon, I was on a treadmill with funding partners on the side tracking my progress, unable to slow down.”
After six years, I had written four papers
These are combined in my doctoral thesis Essays on Servitization. Servitization is the transition of companies from offering basic products towards more integrated solutions. Think for instance of Atlas Copco that, in addition to selling air compressors, plans to literally ‘sell air’ as a service, and Rolls-Royce that offers guaranteed flight hours for its airplane engines.
In my thesis, I discuss the relationships between servitization, digitization and the company’s organization. One of the more surprising findings is that managers driven by different motives are associated with pursuing different business strategies. For instance, people driven by the need to achieve are more likely to refine and create new products and services, whereas people driven by power prefer to improve efficiency in order to keep costs low.
Though I very much enjoy working at AMS and FBE, it is time for something new.
Early October, I will move to Hangzhou in China for a two-year postdoctoral position at the Zhejiang University School of Management (ZJUSOM). Hangzhou, the capital city of the eastern Zhejiang province, is about a two-hour’s drive from Shanghai (or forty minutes by high-speed train) and well-known for its picturesque West Lake and luscious tea fields. It is also home to some of China’s biggest tech companies, such as e-commerce giant Alibaba, and nicknamed ‘China’s answer to Silicon Valley’.
“At ZJUSOM, I will continue my research on servitization and also explore new areas such as companies’ intellectual property management”