PhD Block seminars
The HEC Paris PhD Program offers an attractive series of block seminars open to PhD students from all over the world.
Every year, in spring we offer PhD Block Seminars for PhD students from other universities. They sit in the classroom together with HEC PhD students.
Each Seminar offers PhD-level training, typically about current research trends and frontiers in specialized topics.
Duration: 18h, one week (4 to 5 days), in April, May or June.
Credits: 3 ECTS
Number of seats: Max. 15 participants to ensure quality interaction.
Tuition: 900€ (Participants from HEC Partner Network Universities: 50% discount).
Location: These courses are on-site at the HEC Paris, Campus Jouy en Josas, Access.
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How to Apply:
If you are interested by joining a course please submit your:
- CV (résumé)
- Personal statement (max one page) which includes your current research interests (thesis topic) and contact details of your thesis supervisor
by email to Hailee Tindale from the PhD Office at tindale@hec.fr
Application Deadline: One month before the start of the course as the courses in general requires preparation prior to the start. Note that admissions are handled on a rolling basis and that applications may not be accepted if the course is full.
Admissions Decision: 1 week after submission of the application.
Campus Services: On-campus housing possibility according to availability: approximately from 90€/night, library, IT services, restaurant, sports facilities.
Any questions? Contact Hailee from the PhD Office at tindale@hec.fr
2025 Portfolio
Topic: Marketing Strategy (18h/3 ECTS credits)
Dates: June 02 to June 06, 2025
Instructor
Dr. Stefan Worm is Associate Professor at the BI Norwegian Business School’s Marketing Department. He holds a doctoral degree in Marketing and a master’s degree with majors in Business Administration and Mechanical Engineering from University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. He is doctoral fellow at ISBM (Penn’ State University), and affiliated faculty at ISBM Asia (Indian School of Business) and the Sales and Marketing Strategy Institute (Foster School of Business, University of Washington). Stefan’s research has been published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Retailing, and Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He serves as a member of the editorial review board for the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (FT 50). He is further an ad-hoc reviewer for International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Marketing. Stefan’s research interest centers on the impact of marketing strategies on firm value, with a focus on B2B markets. First, he looks into the performance outcomes of brand strategies in B2B markets. Second, Stefan investigates how traditional suppliers in B2B markets can profitably grow by becoming providers of services and customer solutions. Third, he examines the role of senior management teams and corporate governance in marketing. Read more about Professor Worm here.
Course description
The seminar’s key objective is to enable participants to identify relevant research ideas in Marketing Strategy and develop them into a research proposal for a concrete study. In this pursuit, we will combine readings of seminal and more recent journal articles with a class project wherein participants draft a research proposal in a structured fashion. In addition, the seminar aims at providing an overview of important domains and seminal articles in the domain of marketing strategy research with strong potential relevance for participants’ future teaching assignments.
Programme Schedule (subject to change)
Monday 28 April *
10:00 - 11:00
Monday 02 June
9:00 - 12:30
Tuesday 03 June
9:00 - 12:30
Wednesday 04 June
9:00 - 12:30
Thursday 05 June
9:00 - 12:30
Friday 06 June
13:30 - 16h30
*Please note that while the first session on 28/04/2025 is online, all other sessions are on campus.
How to Apply
If you are interested by joining us please submit your:
- CV (résumé)
- Personal statement (max one page) which includes your current research interests (thesis topic) and contact details of your thesis supervisor.
to Hailee Tindale, tindale@hec.fr
Application deadline: 28 March 2025
Topic: Sociological And Organizational Perspectives On Entrepreneurship (18h/3 ECTS credits)
Dates: May 19 - 23, 2025
Instructor
Patricia Thornton, Professor of Sociology and Entrepreneurship, Mays School of Business, Texas A&M University (USA) and Professor at HEC Paris. Patricia H. Thornton is The Grand Challenge Professor of Sociology and Entrepreneurship, Department of Sociology and Adjunct Professor of Management, Mays School of Business, Texas A&M University. She is affiliated faculty to the Program on Organizations, Business, and the Economy in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. Her research and teaching interests focus on the areas of institutional and organization and management theory, innovation and entrepreneurship, and the social and cultural factors associated with entrepreneurship. She along with cameo practitioners in the Raleigh-Durham area have developed the Action Learning Approach for teaching entrepreneurship using live business plans, entrepreneurs, and investors.Read more here.
Course description
Entrepreneurship as an interdisciplinary field does not have its own conceptual framework to theorize and predict empirical phenomena. This has led scholars to draw on the social science disciplines including psychology, sociology, economics, and organization theory to produce a variety of partial views and programmatic statements of issues, debates, and approaches to the study of entrepreneurship. The overarching goal of the course is to learn how to conduct and publish compelling research in the form of a dissertation prospectus and publishable paper. This goal requires you to ask interesting questions and to learn the social science of how theory grows. We will not simply describe the arguments and findings of the readings but will analyze how the theory and its testing is crafted in the context of the literature. The course is useful for graduate students in management, strategy, and sociology, and it may be of interest to students in other disciplines.
Schedule (subject to change)
Monday May 19
Morning session: 10h00 - 12h00
Afternoon session: 14h00 - 16h00
Tuesday May 20
Morning session: 10h00 - 12h00
Afternoon session: 14h00 - 16h00
Wednesday May 21
Morning session: 10h00 - 12h00
Afternoon session: 14h00 - 16h00
Thursday May 22
Morning session: 10h00 - 12h00
Afternoon session: 14h00 - 16h00
Friday May 23
Morning session: 10h00 - 12h00
How to Apply
If you are interested by joining us please submit your:
- CV (résumé)
- Personal statement (max one page) which includes your current research interests (thesis topic) and contact details of your thesis supervisor.
to Hailee Tindale, tindale@hec.fr
Application deadline: 19 April 2025
Topic: Corporate Purpose: Defining and researching it (18h/3 ECTS credits)
Dates: April 7 - 10, 2025
Instructor
Rodolphe Durand is the Joly Family Professor of Purposeful Leadership at HEC-Paris and the founder of the Sustainability and Organizations Institute (S&O) which he launched in 2009. Over the past decade, he was Visiting Professor at UCLA (Anderson), Oxford University (Said Business School), New York University (Stern Business School), London Business School, and Cambridge University (Judge Business School), and Visiting Scholar at Harvard Business School. As a scholar, Rodolphe’s primary research interests concern the normative and cognitive dimensions of firms' performance, and especially the consequences for firms of identifying and coping with the current major environmental and social challenges. Why do organizations supersede rivals? Can Corporate Social Responsibility bring an advantage to firms and diffuse in markets? How and why does a firm’s purpose provide economic advantages? For his work on these questions that integrate multiple research streams, Rodolphe received the American Sociological Association’s R. Scott Award in 2005, the European Academy of Management/Imagination Lab Award for Innovative Scholarship in 2010, was inducted Fellow of the Strategic Management Society in 2014, and granted a Doctor Honoris Causa from UC Louvain in 2019. As a board member, purpose committee member, and advisor, Rodolphe works with multiple organizations on developing, implementing, and assessing impact strategies that value a firm’s purpose and intangible assets. Read more about Professor Durand here.
Course description (subject to change)
The aim of this seminar is to reflect on the recent expansion of research around corporate purpose. This collection of articles points to corporate purpose as a legal, social, cognitive, and strategic construction. Depending on the core definition of corporate purpose, different research questions can be asked and solved –or not. It is the aim of this seminar to acquaint participants with some of the issues around corporate purpose definition and development using several lenses to examine the advantages (and potential disadvantages) accruing to firms who state and implement a corporate purpose.
Programme schedule (subject to change)
Monday April 7
Morning session: 10h00 - 12h30
Afternoon session: 14h00 - 17h00
Tuesday April 8
Morning session: 09h30 - 12h00
Wednesday April 9
Morning session: 10h00 - 12h30
Afternoon session: 14h00 - 17h00
Thursday April 10
Morning session: 10h00 - 12h30
Afternoon session: 14h00 - 16h00
How to Apply
If you are interested by joining us please submit your:
- CV (résumé)
- Personal statement (max one page) which includes your current research interests (thesis topic) and contact details of your thesis supervisor.
to Hailee Tindale, tindale@hec.fr
Application deadline: 7th March 2024