IS doctoral program raises top scholars

Gun-woong Lee's move from PhD student to faculty member at a leading research university is the kind of outcome that the IS doctoral program is designed to deliver.

In the academic world, doctoral students who will complete their degrees in the spring “go on the market” for positions at colleges and universities just after the New Year. But Gun-woong Lee, who will receive a PhD in information systems this coming May, isn’t in the hunt. He has already accepted an offer from one of the top research universities in Asia — Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

It’s a remarkable achievement that speaks to the quality of Gun-woong’s work and his dedication. But it is also testament to the quality and global reach of the doctoral program in the Department of Information Systems.

Gun-woong is excited about the job, which is in the department of information systems in NTU’s business school. He said that the school carves out a lot of time for professors to pursue research and the faculty is highly productive. And in Asia, where the faculty works closely with companies, it is easier to obtain real world data for use in research..p>

A native of South Korea, Gun-woong graduated with a degree in computer science in the late 1990s. He was looking forward to a career in the exploding tech sector until the bubble burst. “That’s when I decided to learn more about managing technology,” he said, and he went back to school for a master’s degree in information systems. Following that he worked in government for two years, researching the effects of online gaming and exploring how cyber money works.

A desire to learn how rigorous research is conducted brought him to the United States, where research standards are the highest in the world. At Purdue he earned a master’s degree in economics and then came to the W. P. Carey School of Business because the IS faculty is known for its research and the quality of its doctoral program.

Developing researchers

Gun-woong’s move from PhD student to faculty member at a leading research university is the kind of outcome that the IS doctoral program is designed to deliver.

“I think the differentiator for us is the diversity of the faculty and their research interests,” said Professor Raghu Santanam, who coordinates the program. “We are a department with diverse interests where you will have no difficulty putting together committees that have different skill sets and strengths that help you push your research to its full potential.”

A year ago the program went through a self-prescribed external review, when academics from other universities visited and made recommendations. As a result, the program was redesigned and a two-year sequence of independent study classes was eliminated. In streamlining the curriculum, candidates now target their efforts in a way that is more closely tailored to their prior work experience, academic background, research skills, and career aspirations.

Now students are working independently to develop their projects. “The change was made to make them independent,” Santanam said. “This way they take ownership of their research early on. They look to faculty as sounding boards and for positioning their research, rather than looking to faculty for research ideas.”

The approach is in synch with that taken by other top IS programs, and the results are showing. This fall, all of the IS doctoral students presented papers at the leading conferences, including the INFORMS Annual Meeting in San Francisco and the ICIS conference/workshops in New Zealand.

A trio of papers

The goal is for each student to complete three journal articles before finishing the program. Gun-woong has finished two and will have one more ready for submission this spring.

His first paper in the dissertation, which was recently published in the Journal of Management Information Systems, explores the differences between mobile platform and traditional online platforms as marketplaces. Online, he explains, buyers can easily find company websites and compare products. But with more than 1,000 apps released per day, it’s difficult for customers to know which is better for them. Gun-woong looked at the strategies developers can employ in this environment. His current project also involves mobile platforms: what is the optimal time to update an app and how should the improved product be priced.

He also worked with Santanam in the health care sector on a project that looks at the evolution of commercial patient/physician portals.

Next year, the department expects to admit three new students to the doctoral program. It’s a process that mirrors the job search Gun-woong’s classmates are going through. Potential students will be checking out programs, and the schools will be looking for the next Gun-woong.

“It is the right size program in a large business school,” he added. “You have many faculty to work with and yet you will not get lost.”

More about the Information Systems Doctoral Program: The Information Systems PhD: Exploring the leading edge of change

Doctoral Journey: A lean start up