📌 Key facts
- When: Applications open now!
- How to Apply: Send an email to alexandra.abler@tum.de with your CV, grade report, and a research proposal as one PDF file.
I am looking for a motivated student who enjoys rigorous, methodologically demanding work and aims to contribute to high-quality, impactful research!
- 📌 Key facts
- 💡 Background
- 🔍 What You Will Do
- 🧠 What You Will Gain
- 🦾Who We Are
- 🎓 Profile
- 📝 How to Apply
- 📬 Contact
💡 Background
Board diversity research has long focused on gender. However, recent reviews and meta-analyses show that boards also differ along age, nationality, ethnicity, education, functional background, tenure, social capital, and status, with mixed and often inconclusive findings regarding firm outcomes.
To move the field forward, rigorous, transparent, and reliable coding of diversity dimensions is essential.
This thesis is embedded in an ongoing large-scale meta-analysis on board diversity beyond gender. The conceptual groundwork and literature base already exist. What is missing , and where you come in, is systematic coding. You will then do your own meta analysis on part of the dataset (e.g., religious diversity → firm performance)
This is a methodologically strong thesis with direct relevance for practice and research.
Sounds interesting? It is. Want to be part of it? We are looking forward to receiving your applications!
🔍 What You Will Do
- Code academic articles on board diversity using a predefined coding scheme
- Classify non-gender diversity dimensions (e.g., age, ethnicity, nationality, human capital, social capital)
- Apply established frameworks (e.g., diversity as variety, separation, disparity)
- Independently code overlapping samples to assess intercoder reliability
- Document coding decisions and contribute to methodological robustness
- Closely collaborate with other researchers working on the meta-analysis
This thesis is empirical, structured, and method-driven.
🧠 What You Will Gain
- Hands-on experience in meta-analytic research
- Deep understanding of how diversity is conceptualized and measured in top journals
- Exposure to publication-level research standards
- Clear methodological skill-building (coding, reliability, documentation)
- Close supervision and integration into an active research project
🦾Who We Are
The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership, and Teams.. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies, and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.
🎓 Profile
- Interest and basic knowledge of: Leadership, Management, and Diversity
- Organizational skills and proactive communication
- Reliable and self-driven working style
📝 How to Apply
If you are interested, please contact Alexandra Abler by submitting your CV and grade report in one pdf file.
Please indicate your preferred start date and motivation in your application.
Please don’t use ChatGPT within your application. Please write briefly and precisely, as you will do in your thesis.
📬 Contact
Alexandra Abler (Chair for Strategy and Organization)
Starting literature: