Ph.D. Corner

One of the highlights of any academic’s career is receiving the very first notice an article is accepted for publication in an academic journal. The long, arduous process can take months or often years from the start of the project, through drafting the results into a paper, submitting it to a journal, navigating several potential rounds of revisions, and ultimately, a final acceptance. We hope this happy milestone takes place while our students are still in the program, as high-quality publications can make a student truly shine above candidates from other top schools when searching for that first academic position.

Over the past few years, we have begun to insert incentives and requirements into the Ph.D. program to encourage students to start research projects earlier and increase number of submissions in the hope of having at least one “hit” when they enter the job market.

We had a couple of “firsts” in journal publications this spring. Not only did two students get their first publications, but those articles appeared in level “A” journals in their respective fields, which is quite rare for doctoral students. The Journal of Applied Psychology is one of the very top psychology journals and is highly regarded by management scholars in schools of business. Teng Iat (Lawrence) Loi is the lead author on a paper accepted in that journal titled, “From Helping Hands to Harmful Acts: When and How Employee Volunteering Promotes Workplace Deviance,” along with Carson faculty Kristine Kuhn, Arvin Sahaym, Kenneth Butterfield, and Tom Tripp.

Meanwhile, the Journal of Business Venturing is arguably the top entrepreneurship journal. Smita Srivastava is the lead author on a paper accepted in that journal titled, “Alert and Awake: The Role of CEO Alertness and Attention on Rate of New Product Introduction,” along with coauthors Arvin Sahaym and Thomas Allison. We hope these “first” level A publications by Carson doctoral students set the trend for many more to follow!

We are proud of all of our Ph.D. alumni, and this year’s class is no exception. Whether or not their first job after graduation remains their lifetime employer, we look forward to seeing many more firsts and milestones from this group as their careers progress.

Chuck Munson,
Ph.D. Program Director