Tuesday, February 24, 2015

[DMANET] Phd bursary - University of Portsmouth UK

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*Supervisors*

Dr Alessio Ishizaka, Dr Valerie Anderson, Mr Peter Bednar

*Funding Status**//*

The full-time studentship will cover tuition fees and an annual grant
equivalent to that offered by the ESRC – set at £13,996 per annum for
2014/15 for a maximum of three years. UK/EU residence eligibility
conditions apply.

**

*Application Deadline*

Tuesday 21^st April 2015

*Project Title*

Integrated use of methods to prevent conflict and facilitate communication

*Project details*

Cognition and decision-making are key issues for organizations in
periods of institutional change. Data from UK organizations also
indicate a rise in workplace conflict during such periods with negative
consequences for efficiency and productivity and medium term problems in
relation to collaboration to achieve innovation and change-readiness.

This project aims to develop a "network of perception and prevention"
applicable to complex organizations, to understand and underline the
main (stakeholder defined) problems and to propose actions to prevent
conflicts and to facilitate collaboration and communication.

The research design underpinning the project will be action research in
a complex company (e.g. large service provider) and include two phases:
firstly to analyse, define and formulate problem spaces and secondly to
act on them.

In the first phase, problem structuring methods (PSM) and systems
approaches will be used with an integration of actor analysis and
cognitive mapping methods. This phase allows for a structured
description of the problem situation to be presented to the management
of the business school. Concepts that had been acquired by means of
interviews to key actors will be structured and used to allow choices to
be made with regards to suitable and relevant forms of intervention.

In the second phase, the concepts and their relationships will be
transformed into multi-criteria decision models (MCDM) with actions,
criteria and parameters, in order to elaborate possible (re-) solutions
and compare them, and also to identify new aspects and points of views
which will improve the model.

*Enquiries relating to the topic should be directed to: *Dr Alessio
IshizakaReader in Decision Analysis, Deputy Director of the CORL,
0044(0)23 9284 4171, Email: Alessio.Ishizaka@port.ac.uk
<mailto:Alessio.Ishizaka@port.ac.uk>

**

*Funding Notes:*
This full-time studentship is open to UK/ EU students only and is
located in Portsmouth Business School, Hampshire, UK.

*Qualifications:**Applicants will have a good first degree*(minimum 2.1
or equivalent) and a relevant Masters (or equivalent) with elements of
management and/or decision analysis and/or system analysis

Potential applicants can find further information on PBS Research and
Research Degrees at:

http://www.port.ac.uk/portsmouth-business-school/research/

http://www.port.ac.uk/portsmouth-business-school/research-degrees/

*Applications should include: *

*[Please note to follow this guide to apply for this bursary award – do
not send an online application for a PhD]*

**

·a full CV including personal details, qualifications, educational
history and, where applicable, any employment or other experience
relevant to the application

·contact details for TWO referees able to comment on your academic
performance

·a statement of 1,000 (words) outlining the main features of a research
design you would propose to meet the stated objectives, identifying the
challenges this project might present and discussing how the work will
build on or challenge existing research in the above field.

*Interviews: *Interviews will be conducted on Thursday 14 May 2015

**

*Start date for the studentship: 1 October 2015. *

*Applications should be sent to: Lauren Payne*, Postgraduate Centre,
University of Portsmouth, Richmond Building, Portland Street,
Portsmouth, PO1 3DE (applications can be submitted electronically via:
lauren.payne@port.ac.uk and cc to alessio.ishizaka@port.ac.uk
<mailto:joe.cox@port.ac.uk>)

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