Increasing collaboration across PhD programs and creating new and innovative offers for PhD candidates to advance their research skills while benefitting from international networking opportunities are central elements of our three designated lighthouse initiatives in the ENGAGE.EU alliance. This new PhD course seeks to take a novel approach in this direction. The course is jointly developed and delivered by WU Vienna and NHH and uses a format to ensure that - for the first time - all ten ENGAGE.EU partner universities can send PhD candidates (at least one per partner university) to a week-long training on how to make an impact by disseminating their first research projects in premier outlets.

The course addresses PhD candidates who have written a draft paper in a management-related area (strategy, organization, entrepreneurship, marketing, innovation management, international business, human resources management, etc.) and whose goal is to submit this paper to a leading journal of this area. Most journals publish guidelines on how to prepare a suitable manuscript, however, the rules that shape the game of writing, revising, and resubmitting manuscripts are mainly implicit. In this course, we will try to make these rules explicit or at least experienceable and to enable PhD candidates to publish their work successfully.

The focus of this course will be on deductive quantitative research, meaning that researchers ground their hypotheses on theory and test these hypotheses empirically. To apply for the course, it is necessary to submit a paper draft that comprises all main parts of a journal article, namely: introduction, theory and hypotheses, methods and (preliminary) results, discussion. In addition, each participant shares an extended (two-page) abstract of their paper that will be circulated among all participants.

After completion of this course, participants will be able to craft a state-of-the-art paper for submission to top management journals and navigate through the review process at these journals.

The course takes place in a blocked, in-person format at the premises of WU Vienna in the first week of March. In the morning of each day, participants act as reviewers who comment on submitted papers and as authors who revise their drafts accordingly. In the afternoon, we will meet in the classroom to discuss remaining issues and provide guidance for further developing the papers.

The course is structured into five sessions:

1. Monday: getting started
   Course instructors give an introduction on writing manuscripts for submission to academic journals and maneuvering through the review processes, assign tasks for the remainder of the course to participants, and give a preview on how to write an attractive introduction section of a paper. We close the day with an informal get-together with finger-food and drinks.
2. Tuesday: writing an attractive introduction
   Participants have shared a draft of their paper via Canvas. In their role as reviewers, they use track changes and the commenting function to provide constructive feedback on another participant’s introduction section. In their role as authors, they implement these suggestions in their drafts. After lunch, up to three participants as authors pitch their introduction to the audience, reviewers present their respective comments, and authors respond by explaining the implementation of these comments. We discuss the suggestions and their implementation in class. In preparation for the next day, course instructors give a preview on how to write a compelling theory and hypotheses section.
3. Wednesday: writing a compelling theory and hypotheses section
   Participants have shared a draft of their paper via Canvas. In their role as reviewers, they use track changes to provide constructive feedback on another participant’s theory and hypotheses section. In their role as authors, they implement these suggestions in their drafts. After lunch, up to three participants as authors pitch their theory and hypotheses section to the audience, reviewers present their respective comments, and authors respond by explaining the implementation of these comments. We discuss the suggestions and their implementation in class. In preparation for the next day, course instructors give a preview on how to write a clear methods and results part.
4. Thursday: writing a clear methods and results part
   Participants have shared a draft of their paper via Canvas. In their role as reviewers, they use track changes to provide constructive feedback on another participant’s methods and results section. In their role as authors, they implement these suggestions in their drafts. After lunch, up to three participants as authors pitch their methods and results section to the audience, reviewers present their respective comments, and authors respond by explaining the implementation of these comments. We discuss the suggestions and their implementation in class. In preparation for the next day, course instructors give a preview on how to write an impressive discussion of the implications.
5. Friday: writing an impressive discussion of the implications
   Participants have shared a draft of their paper via Canvas. In their role as reviewers, they use track changes to provide constructive feedback on another participant’s discussion section. In their role as authors, they implement these suggestions in their drafts. After lunch, up to three participants as authors pitch their discussion section to the audience, reviewers present their respective comments, and authors respond by explaining the implementation of these comments. We discuss the suggestions and their implementation in the group. Course instructors sum up the key learnings of the course and invite all participants for a closing dinner.

• Presentation of a paper section: 20%
• Presentation of comments on another participant’s paper section: 30%
• Presentation of the implementation of suggested changes: 50%

Applicants for this course send a 1-page motivation letter outlining their topic and progress of their project and a written draft paper (cf above) to petra.hennrich@wu.ac.at in the period from Jan 13^th to 17^th, 2025.

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