Overview/Program Description
The Doctoral Program in Information Systems at Michigan State University is designed to prepare individuals for a career in information systems research and teaching at the university level. The available course work covers a broad range of topics, including information systems, accounting, economics, finance, management, telecommunications, computer science, psychology, and statistics. Doctoral students are expected to be in residence on a full-time basis during the program. While in the course work stage of the program, doctoral students are also assigned as teaching and/or research assistants. Upon completion of course work, students are required to pass a comprehensive examination in accounting and then complete a dissertation that demonstrates their ability to conduct an original research project. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree is a confirmation that the recipient has demonstrated a high level of scholarship and is able to teach at the university level and to conduct scholarly research independently.
The strengths of the program include world-class faculty who are reputed for their research, editorial positions, and information systems community leadership. Current research programs span a wide range of topics. Examples of these include:
- The individual acceptance and use of information technologies
- Organizational diffusion, adoption, and use of information technologies
- The role of trust in promoting technology-mediated inter-organizational relationships
- Role of routines and organizational work processes in IT-mediated transformations
- Organizational capabilities, structures, and skills for leveraging IT value
- Impacts of IT investments on customer relationship, supply chain, and knowledge management
- IT capabilities and the dynamics of competitive action
- Decision support tools and their organizational impacts
Faculty have published their research in most of the top journals including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Management Science, Organization Science, Administrative Science Quarterly, Decision Sciences, Journal of Marketing, and the IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.
In addition, information systems faculty hold editorial positions at most of the top journals that publish information system research. Faculty also hold leadership positions in the information systems community, including leadership roles in the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) and the Academy of Management.
Another strength of the program is its multidisciplinary orientation. The program draws upon the competence of faculty in a variety of disciplines across the Broad College of Business, including accounting, finance, marketing and supply chain, management, and hospitality. In addition, the program draws upon faculty from the computer science (http://www.cse.msu.edu/) and telecommunications (http://tc.msu.edu/).