Seven (7) PhD Scholarships, Wittenberg Centre for Global Ethics, Germany (2016)

The Wittenberg Center for Global Ethics (WCGE) and the Leadership Excellence Institute Zeppelin (LEIZ) will award up to seven scholarships for the PhD program "Ethics and Responsible Leadership in Business",starting in September 2016.

Funded by the German Karl Schlecht Foundation, WCGE and LEIZ jointly launched the PhD program in 2014. The program is open to outstanding PhD students whose research interests relate to responsible leadership in a global business context. In addition to providing the students with subject-specific qualifications, the program aims to embed students' research into a broader theoretical and socio-political framework. The program is therefore part of a dialog platform, which brings together the academic expertise of leading business ethics professors, the know-how of international corporations, and the perspectives of civil society actors. The program promotes research that is theoretically well-informed and, at the same time, offers feasible solutions for doing business responsibly in the global market. PhD proposals must make a contribution to the academic discourse, corporate practice and the public debate.

Topical focus and study program
In the modern, global society, the responsibility of companies and their decision-makers is becoming more and more prevalent as a topic every day. However, corporations and their managers can only be expected to make a constructive contribution to this situation if they have the necessary leadership competences that enable them to build public trust and to maintain their corporate license-to-operate in the long term. Societal trust and corporate responsibility can be considered on three levels; each of which constitutes a specific point of focus in the field of business ethics. These include:

Institutional Ethics
Which rules and structures are necessary to ensure that business serves the good of the people? What are the requisite conditions for being able to build global, cross-cultural institutional structures?

Corporate Ethics
How can collective actors assume responsibility and implement the necessary organizational structures internally? What is the added value of concepts such as Shared Value and Stakeholder Management?

Individual Ethics
How can the ability of decision-makers to judge, shape and discuss aspects of business ethics be developed? Which roles do personality and moral imagination play in this regard?

WCGE and LEIZ accept applications from students whose research proposals directly or indirectly address at least one of the levels of business ethics listed above. Proposals should emphasise the practical relevance of the research goal and bear reference to the global context. In order to support the students with knowledge of specific concepts and methodologies, the successful candidates will participate in the accompanying study program, consisting of courses and field projects.

Further details:
http://www.idealist.org