 Hi there, welcome to the session on the master in research methods and its source, focusing on finance and management and then also our PhD program in finance and management. My name is Gerhard Kling, I'm a professor of international business and management and source and I'm actually here just to you know introduce the program a little bit and also take any questions you might have and we'll just talk a little bit about what we are doing here and why it might be interesting for you to join us and at source. So if you have any questions in the live chat you have options basically to ask me any questions you want and I will answer them as far as I can. Sometimes I might need to you know refer to other people in particular when it comes to say scholarships or other more technical subjects or I might need to get back to you using email or other means but feel free to stop me at any time, ask any questions you like and I will try to get back to you. So basically the idea of this little chat is to see where your interests are as well so why you might like to come to source, why you might consider doing maybe a PhD at one point in finance and management. So my own background is pretty much in economics but also later in life in mathematics and in my own case I focus on research on China mostly looking at foreign-like investment from China and to other markets and also corporate governance issues so basically how companies are governed so this is partly the internal governance of companies but also the interaction between the state and the private sector in China. So if you have any interest in particular in China I think it would be a good idea to have maybe a chat with me or you can always drop me an email and you will find me on the website. I think if you want to do in particular research in your career maybe potentially also considering an academic career it's always a good idea to check out the people in various departments and just look at what they're doing, what kind of research they want to pursue in the next years, check the publications and in particular I think it's always important to read a few of their papers. So quite often I get emails from potential students, potential applicants and they ask me whether I would like to supervise something which is clearly out of my area and in most cases I can always refer them to other colleagues that work on a particular region or particular industry or particular subject. So I think from my perspective in particular if you want to do a PhD it's your responsibility to just you know look around a little bit see what people are doing and then approach them before you apply. Now again if you have any questions you can always ask your questions using the chat option otherwise I will just very briefly talk about our master in research methods and then about how the PhD program runs at SOAS and in particular then also why you might like to come to SOAS and also what happens next after you hopefully complete successfully your studies. Now first of all the master in research methods is kind of a quite a unique master program in particular for students who want to pursue a PhD but don't necessarily have a strong background in finance and management and also it's mainly focused on developing research methods. So this is partly what you call qualitative research methods so for instance how to conduct interviews, how to collect data, how to collect information, how to do conceptual work which is important in particular in management but also quantitative research methods which includes for instance the analysis of financial time series which is really essential in particular when you want to work in finance. So these aspects mostly around how to do research are part of the master in research methods. So lots of our students who complete the master in research methods and they then apply for a PhD program at SOAS or other institutions so we had some students then taking a scholarship for instance and studying at UCL at a PhD in finance or getting into into side business school oxfords. We had quite a few really good success stories. Of course as always in my view trying to do a PhD is a very long-term commitment. So here we talk about three years of your life which is quite a bit and in most cases might even take four years so I think it's something you really need to think about very carefully also in terms of career possibilities and I'm really moving happy to have a chat about this as you know have an honest chat about what is a plausible career trajectory in your particular case and we can always do this by email or can also have maybe a Skype call or also face-to-face meeting. I think it's very very important if you really want to do research in particular in a place like SOAS which is quite a small institution just to talk to people directly you know just drop them a line and organize a meeting and just you know ideally have a look around SOAS and just you know check out facilities and discuss your your research project and we are indeed moving happy to help and you know chat about your your ideas. For me the MRes is indeed focusing on potential PhD students but of course always after you know doing this master program for one year you might actually decide maybe it's not for me maybe I don't want to commit another three years of my life doing a research project and so there's always I would say a certain number of students not more actually than about maybe a third or so on that then go go into into the private sector public sector. However in most of these cases they actually work using indeed research intense methods in particular when you do financial research of course you can always work in the private sector but also in the public sector. So from my perspective the MRes is a good way to kind of you know try and and see whether you you like it and whether this is something you might consider and if you decide at one point this is not entirely for me you might in this case say okay I just might might use my skills and then move on. I think in general it's always important also when you do a PhD project to think very carefully what is your long-term career perspective. Of course I would say a significant number of our students they want to go into academic research for that of course you have to have basically a PhD as an entry qualification so to speak but also in particular in finance or in management it's very common that you actually go into the private or public sector. In this case you have to focus more carefully on you know thinking about the skills you want to acquire and thinking about also you know the networks you need to actually enter a suitable job after completing your studies and from my perspective it's all about transferable skills. So when you study on the master in research methods for instance we focus a lot on you know understanding you know as a computer software for instance maybe use quite a few of them and so I think it's important also for students to learn and maybe a programming language and because nowadays in particular if you work in finance this is quite useful quite helpful. Again it's a transferable skill so you don't have to stay in academia to use it. So I think this is from my perspective very important. So I think right from the start and it's important to think very carefully where you want to go after completing your studies. So if you have any questions after this short introduction please let me know and I'm happy to respond to that. I'm also otherwise I'm happy to talk a little bit more about our department and the type of research we are doing. So I'm just now I'm seeing someone typing and just maybe wait a few minutes. So basically in our department we cover mostly finance or most of our academics will work on issues around corporate finance issues around corporate governance international finance. We also have the global finance center which is a center finance by MVAXA research fund. Again if you're very interested in these subjects it might be very useful to speak to the professors involved in particular Victor Morinde. You can just check his profile his website and you can have a discussion around topics that might maybe interest you. The other area we do quite a lot is international management. This is part of my own research which is not only about China of course in my case it's all about China but also the MENA region but not only that goes beyond that as a Japan career where we have certain academics working on these markets. In particular the unique thing about us is we quite often combine various aspects of of course functional knowledge in particular in finance of course also in management and statistics and regional expertise and so if you want to combine these two I think this is quite a good place for you in this case. So I just got a question about career paths if you study and at SOAS and do the M-RES and the PhD and of course the most traditional vein when it comes to careers is after doing that it's kind of a classic academic career choice so you you do your PhD and then you want to enter the academic job market. Quite a few of our students do that of course we have lots of students from overseas so quite often they might actually try to enter the international job market. In fact the academic job market is international. So in my own case I worked in three different countries thus far maybe more going forward who knows and it's actually very very common for our students to maybe enter the Chinese university market other markets. I think the good thing about us is we have lots of academics that also worked in various countries we understand these markets we have good good networks. For instance in my case at the moment I'm a principal investigator of a large research project with two Chinese universities, Nankai University and Zhejiang University and also you have colleagues visiting us from these institutions so for instance if you want to consider going into the Chinese market as an academic I think there are good people to talk to and to be honest the Chinese market is indeed at the moment very strong of course also quite competitive and every market you look at different requirements so the process is different in terms of how you do the applications and how selections are done and I think it's it's very interesting just to talk to faculty members that actually experienced different markets. In my own case I also worked in the private sector before going back into academia so I worked for McKinsey in corporate finance and banking and that was in the good years it was before the crisis I left in in 2007 April 2007 in fact and which was good timing after that basically my yeah my whole department more or less disappeared but they all actually landed very softly in other positions so it's not a bad thing to be honest. So I think this is the most you know likely career trajectory but of course lots of our students they actually then consider going to the public sector or going into research institutions yeah for instance we had students entering the PhD program at the government for instance or other institutions which is very common. They have done this for many years kind of executive training for revenue and customs and lots of our students also went to HMRC and there are opportunities. Now I got another question about part-time options and yes part-time is definitely a good possibility for PhD and also lots of our students are in full-time employment actually one of my PhD students he initially worked for Deutsche Bank in London. He now he moved later to a bank in Denmark so he commuted between London and Denmark and still was doing a PhD part-time and he is now getting closer to getting finished and he now will now moved again to a different institution in London. So we have lots of students that are in full-time employment and at the same time doing a PhD in this case of course the requirements are a little bit different so as a part-time student you have double the time so that means you can take six years for your PhD to complete and if you have a so-called write-up period you can extend another two years so in theory you can take up to eight years but as always it is quite a commitment particularly if you do a full-time job maybe also have a family life plus doing a PhD is challenging and one has to be honest about this but I think it's it's important if you if you're interested just to talk to potential supervisors and actually most of us have had part-time PhD students and in fact some of my best students actually did it part-time. I think the benefit is if you're part-time in most cases you tend to be more experienced more mature so to speak and in most cases you're better at managing your time which is really crucial so as long as you can do that it's it's it's definitely not bad but as always you have to be realistic in terms of what are realistic aims for that but I think it can be done it definitely can be done the benefit of doing it part-time is of course it's a different type of financial pressure and you also gain of course work experience value while you do your PhD and it depends very much on what your aim is in most cases my part-time students don't want to go into academic work they want to do a PhD more to actually do research to be linked to current research going on they might use this knowledge then for your for their own work and I think this is the most likely motivation and of course nowadays in particularly if it comes to to using large-scale data so when you think about you know big data as a topic and this is relevant in the private and as in the public sector so there are lots of opportunities you know how to handle data outside academia and to be honest among us it's usually much better paid anyway and so lots of our students consider this move which of course is entirely up to our student so I think yes there are good options for part-time students but of course one has to I think have a realistic discussion before you start with your supervisor how to organize in particular how to organize meetings okay so now one more question about pre-entry English language programs okay this I think I have to get back to you and I'm not entirely sure we do this usually we do this for for for our master but I'm not entirely for the PhD you would usually you need language requirements have to be tested before you get on the program but there are some some options for for other programs but not for the PhD as far as I know but I need to get back to you on that okay one more question here can you say something about what's the daily life of a PhD student might look like well of course I was a PhD student myself this is of course a few years ago as you might as you might figure out looking at me it's a few years back I finished in in 2004 so that's a few years back my life back then was was quite different I did my my PhD in economics focusing on economic history so I spent quite a bit of time you know going through in data sets checking archives and then collecting the data analyzing the data and it was pretty intense and usually as a PhD student it's it's pretty much you are driving a project so it's not like starting a standard master's degree so you have to actually be on top of your your project you have to to manage it and you have to also you know in particular manage your manage your time PhD projects are entirely you know different it depends on what you want to do so in my case if it was pretty much empirical research in economics but some of the work is more focused on collecting data doing field work for instance talking to people which is entirely different nothing for me personally because I don't like that I prefer actually working with data not people but it's a different matter but anyway there are different options and usually life a PhD student I think is it can be quite an hectic exciting at the same time so if you like to study if you like to explore it's something for you but it's not for everyone one has to be honest some people prefer the structure which you don't have as a PhD student is not not like doing another master okay so another interesting question would I personally supervise a project in entrepreneurship in relation to China or Chinese transnational entrepreneur operating in sub-Saharan Africa okay that is rather specific in my case yes I work on on Chinese companies entering various markets including also African countries and entrepreneurship is not one of my strengths entrepreneurship tends to be a literature more theory driven in management in particular so here I think it would be good to talk to someone who does more qualitative research as well so I'm very much as a mathematician as you might think as an economist a numbers person who could this be I think you have to have a discussion around that I have a few names in mind but potentially a qualitative person who is who's actually someone who does both kind of this is on souk on souk is focusing not to me but he does a lot of work also around FDI not necessarily too much on on Africa but also focusing on what is going on in terms of Chinese over these investments and on souk might be someone to talk to I'm happy to send you if you drop me an email I'm happy to to send you a few names and contacts in most cases any way you will have well you have a team of supervisors so we have two supervisors so you might then kind of you know try in your team to cover various aspects yeah so for instance you might have have someone focusing more on on on qualitative aspects of your research maybe someone else who is for instance a regional expert yeah so I think that's usually a good combination yeah I just saw your email address yeah I will drop you a line and we can be in touch I think in general it's a good topic it's a good topic there's a lot of investment going on at the moment lots of Chinese investment in various countries and of course initially people always think that when it comes to Chinese companies going to Africa it's all about only raw material so it's all about mining and raw material agriculture but actually this is not really true anymore it has changed a lot lots of investment and goes into into various sectors of economy also Chinese investment is is quite significant again for the UK markets at the moment it's roughly about 22 billion a year coming into the UK markets from China and this is more important than actually exports from the UK to China which is about 22 billion a year so actually you know the game has changed a lot so I think this is an exciting research topic and becomes very relevant for policymakers because of course as we know this is a potential driver for economic development so I have been actually quite active in this area so yes I will drop you a line I will get back to you and I think it's a hot area it's a good topic in particular of course the whole initiative it comes to a road and bear initiative in China about infrastructure investment of the countries and this is definitely very high up there in terms of also policy agenda but also relevance in terms of economic development so I think that's something to consider also I have to say also in my own case I always have done and consulting work next to my academic life and I think it's very important just to to talk to to companies as well you know just to be a bit more hands-on it's all nice to write and create academic papers but I think it's indeed very important to to see actually what can you think and just to see what are the problems so I have done some work also for Chinese companies but also companies based in other countries in particular when it comes to entering and other markets so actually how to do this successfully so also your topic when it comes to entrepreneurship in Africa I think there are various layers to it it could be around issues of market entry it could be also about corporate governance which is a very hot topic and in particular in some countries when in Chinese companies do face a lot of hurdles to enter markets for various reasons and of course it is very much also driven by policies and I think this is definitely something that is an interesting research area so I have to be honest with you I started my own PhD my main motivation was simply out of interest I just really wanted to know more just after doing a master in economics of this kind of combined BSc MSc I just thought okay this is this is not enough I just need to do a bit more so quite often this is this is not a bad motivation curiosity I think is important because I need to actually be motivated to to to work for three years on one particular topic and I think you know that is is quite a challenge sometimes and I think because also we do lots of research projects I think there are always opportunities in in our department as to get involved in research projects we do quite a bit of data collection Mike is of course focused on China and which again is relevant for a PhD project and of course we try to integrate our research into existing and you know strengths of research and projects which are going on so apart from this work on China another interesting area for me personally is around sustainable finance and green finance this is in particular also some joint work and with the economics department so this is in particular this work with Ulrich Volz who is an expert in green finance and quite often we also co-supervised so it's not uncommon that in particular the economics department also our department you can supervise a student jointly so that depends pretty much on your topic also of course some of our students focus more on development issues so management finance is a discipline it is pretty much across various areas so it's not always straightforward just to nail it down to to one particular discipline yeah also in my case I did move quite a bit topic-wise so do you have any more questions yeah okay can you say a bit more about sustainable finance what is it okay how is sourced in it it's a nice it's a nice in terms of sustainable finance so basically the idea there are lots of ideas around sustainable finance but but one of the issues in particular is can we use basically finance to be more sustainable in terms of you know striking a balance between economic growth but also maybe the you know the environment because end of the day it's it's also about the future of our planet so in my case in a focus on on this aspect in a joint project with Ulrich Folls and also Viktor Morinde we looked at at climate change and the risk of climate change and the impact it has on on cost of capital so that is actually the costs companies have if they want to get access to finance which again of course is important and they want to invest in various projects and we can show basically that if you are located in a country exposed to to risk you have a much higher level of cost of capital so actually this really hurts you as a business it might deter investment which might then of course affect also economic development so quite often economic development and also the sustainability issues they go hand in hand but it's a very broad area so some of it is linked to the environment some is also linked to to issues around them inequality so inequality as as you will know is a very important topic nowadays and inequality in any society can also lead of course to economic and also political instability so how can we make sure that everyone in society actually participates in economic in economic activity I think that is that is fundamentally important so it touches on various aspects of development the environment and also financial and management issues and in particular it's so as we are in a very unique position because we have definitely a cool strength also around the topics of the environment and economic development so I think we are in a quite a unique setting here and of course most of the countries which are most affected by climate risk are needed in in our regions basically so I think that's that's an important topic I just now think as an example when you think about climate risk and think about Vietnam you have almost on a yearly basis in coastal floodings and which of course get worse because of climate and climate change and of course in a country like Vietnam this can lead to quite significant economic damage depending of course on where it hits basically other countries are maybe in a better position to prepare for it particularly I think say about the Netherlands where you have you know significant investment in place to protect yourself yourself against flooding so it's a combination of also you know what kind of protection do you have certain things are kind of you know you can't avoid basically certain you know climate events but it's also around this issue of how can you mitigate risks and I think finance can play a significant role in this case definitely also now there's a lots of financial products which are designed to help countries affected by severe events you know things like you know catastrophic bonds and so on you know there are there are mechanisms in place but also for instance insurance plays a vital role in this context and it's actually an interesting area insurance markets are still quite under researched I think there's a lot one can do there's more focus definitely on banking than insurance companies but I think insurance companies are actually quite relevant particularly also the issue of reinsurance amidst a very significant increase in global risks so I think that's an important issue as a before if you have any further questions you can always drop me an email I will just maybe put this into the chat here if I can do it properly I haven't used this laptop before so it's gk17 at suas.ac.uk you can always drop me a line and we can have a discussion we also have a few open events so usually I'm also at our master's open events you know available for this discussions and please feel free to contact us yeah and in cases I think it's a very very good idea that you need your potential supervisor before you apply I think this is really a good idea because end of the day it's such an important you know such important project and you have to have a good mutual understanding project before you start and before you commit yourself so put differently if the chemistry between you and your supervision team doesn't really work and it's it's not easy so I think it's very very relevant you get in touch before you apply discuss your projects get some feedback early on work on your proposal and then apply and I think that's that's definitely important sometimes I also get you know the question which is kind of a funny one am I too old to start a PhD project because we have quite a few mature students but from my perspective you're never too old I I know these students in various disciplines in their 70s 80s and they're still doing it so you know as long as it makes you happy you should do it I think that's that's important so don't don't be deterred by that anyway yeah thanks to demographic transition life is changing so you never know you never know how long you actually have to work so why not do a PhD also have a have a look at our web pages departmental web pages check your profiles of people in the department and ideally just in you know directly but you can always also contact me first because I'm the PhD tutor so I'm in charge of a PhD program also I'm in charge of the mass and research methods so you can always contact me as a first point of contact they can always refer you to other people that are better suited to answer your queries an interesting question do you also offer dba programs at soar so dba stands for doctor and business administration at the moment the answer is is needy don't and these dba programs are I think interesting because they focus mostly on on on students that are very experienced and worked in management for many years and have lots of industry and expertise and then decide to do some research now a dba program from my perspective needs basically an mba program so a master of business administration so most institutions that have dba is actually also have an mba at the moment we don't have an mba I don't think we will go into this this market because it's it's it's simply a a different market and dba's have some benefits and some disadvantages so if you do a dba and later you want to really do an academic work because you want to go to the academic market it's not the right thing to do in my opinion but it it depends and I think for for there are good places that do dba's because I can't advertise it on here but if you drop me an email I can I can tell you what these places are if you really want to do in dba but you have to think that I have only only a few places in the UK actually are in a good position to offer a really good program that that is beneficial so for me dba's are great if you have a very established mba program and if it's large if you take in lots of different students and in particular if students on these programs really benefit from you know and networking with each other I think that is absolutely crucial and you need from my perspective a strong link to the business community so I think that's that's key and also I think you might need to consider what what type of academics you have and most of these places that offer them tend to have more practitioners teaching but they're not necessarily academic so it it's it's I think it always depends what you're looking for I think that that's basically your career choice but I'm more than happy to to give you a few names if you want to want to move into this direction so let me know if you have anything else just please feel free to drop me an email and I think that for me the most important point is I will be always totally honest when it comes to to these decisions because it is for your long-term commitment so if you have any other questions let me know I'm more than happy to respond to emails and thank you very much for attending this session I hope to talk to you soon all right take care