PhD Programme

PhD in Management Science and Operations

Chair: Professor Bruce Weber, AB (Harvard), MA PhD (Wharton, Pennsylvania)

PhD Co-ordinator: Asst. Professor Andrea Masini, MS (Rome), MS PhD (INSEAD)

The London Business School PhD Programme in Management Science & Operations (MSO) aims to train outstanding scholars who will be sought after by leading business schools, universities and research institutions throughout the world. In addition to Management Science, Statistics and Operations Management we also provide primary training for individuals who may ultimately apply it to functional areas such as strategy, operations management, finance or economics.

The MSO Faculty is involved in research activities in the areas of operations research, statistics and forecasting, optimization, strategic modelling and computational economics, with an emphasis upon building models to aid the analysis of decision problems across all functional areas of management. 

  • This page gives you an overview, to help you decide whether you wish to enquire further about doing your PhD in management sciences.
  • Suitability for a PhD in MSO: in addition to the general criteria for the School's PhD programme, a strong mathematical background and a keen interest in problem solving are essential prerequisites.
  • Industrial funding may be available for students who have already achieved a recognised Masters in Research (M. Res.).

 

PhD coursework:

PhD courses given currently by MSO:

  • Statistical Research Methods I
  • Advanced Statistical Research Methods II
  • Integer and Combinatorial Optimisation
  • Stochastic & Non-Linear Optimisation
  • Stochastic Modelling

 

PhD courses available via other sources include:

  • Econometrics
  • Microeconomics
  • Financial Economics
  • Quantitative Research in Marketing

plus a wide range of other courses covering all business functional areas 
(Other PhD courses)


Current MSO PhD students and research topic (see PhD Programme for supervisor and publications):

  • Richard Curry (Simulation and optimisation techniques in networks)
  • Maria Martoccia (Regulation & competition in regional markets for electricity)
  • Nektaria Karakatsani (Price modelling in energy markets)
  • Martin Kunc (Dynamics of competitive industries)
  • Augusto Ruperez Micola (Energy economics, agent-based simulation)
  • Pascale Crama (Modelling for R&D project management)
  • Yael Grushka-Cockayne (Project & programme management)
  • Nishant Mishra (Stochastic modelling and optimisation)
  • Dipeng Chen (First year).


Topical issues of current interest to the Faculty:

Professor Derek Bunn

  • Computationally-intensive analytical methods for high frequency time-series data, such as intra-day spot prices for electricity and gas.
  • Agent-based computational learning methods applied to strategic competition, to understand the evolution of market structures.


Professor Zeger Degraeve

  • Managerial Decision Making: Techniques, Psychological Influences and Experiment.
  • Risk Assessment: Uncertainty and the Future, Scenario Analysis
  • Real Investment Analysis: Valuation of New Product Development, Capital Budgeting, Real Options Analysis and Valuation, Project Portfolio Management.
  • Procurement and Supply Decisions using Total Cost of Ownership.
  • Operations Management, Operations Research, Optimization. 
  • Decision Analysis and Decision Support, Computer modelling.


Asst. Professor Victor DeMiguel

  • Portfolio optimization in the presence of capital gains taxes, transaction costs, and shortselling and borrowing constraints.
  • Competition and consumer choice models in airline revenue management.
  • Numerical methods for the solution of optimization problems with equilibrium constraints.


Asst. Professor Bert De Reyck

  • Programme and Project Portfolio Management in the pharmaceutical industry.
  • Development of optimisation methodology for project planning (integer programming, exact algorithms, heuristics.
  • R&D Project Valuation and Contract Management.
  • Applications of Management Science and Operations Research (development of decision support models).


Asst. Professor Kristin Fridgeirsdottir

  • Stochastic Modelling
  • Queueing Theory
  • Product Portfolio Management
  • Revenue Management
  • Supply Chain Management


Adjunct Associate Professor John Morecroft

  • System dynamics modelling and simulation applied to the analysis of firm performance, competitive strategy and industry evolution.
  • Problem structuring methods applicable to strategy based on business dynamics, systems thinking and the resource-based view of the firm RBV.


Asst. Professor Catalina Stefanescu

  • Statistical models of demand with applications to revenue management.
  • Modelling and analysis of clustered time-to-event data with applications to default prediction.


Recent awards to PhD students:

  • PhD student Pascale Crama, together with Professors Bert De Reyck and Zeger Degraeve, won the Fifth Annual INFORMS Case Competition 2004, with their recent case study on 'Project Portfolio Management at Novartis Pharma'.
  • Nishant Mishra: AIM Award, to be used for the ongoing research on Revenue Management, with Asst. Professors Catalina Stefanescu, Kristin Fridgeirsdottir and Angel-Victor DeMiguel.


Recent thesis titles:

  • Computational approach to modelling strategic behaviour in electric power pools (Day)
  • Dynamics of resource sharing in related diversification: a feedback simulation modelling approach (Gary)
  • Decision technologies for trading predictability in financial markets (Towers)
  • Computational methodology for modelling the dynamics of statistical arbitrage (Burgess)
  • Agent-based analysis of the sources of market power in deregulated electricity markets (Bower)
  • Variable Structure Modelling in Strategic Business Simulation (Christodoulou)
  • Simulation of Electricity Markets using Agent-Based Computation Learning (de Oliveira)
  • The Evolution of Competitive Advantage from the Dynamics and Context of Resources (Mandal)
  • Patterns of Institutional Change in the Latin American Electricity Sector (Weinmann) 


Appointments of recently graduated PhD students:

  • Adrian Done (IESE Business School, Spain; and AIM Fellow, London Business School)
  • Jens Weinmann – Harvard University
  • Abhiijit Mandal – Warwick Business School
  • Fernando Oliveira – Warwick Business School
  • Kostis Christodoulou – CASS Business School
  • Rui Sousa (Universidade Catolica Portuguesa)
  • John Bower – Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
  • Shayne Gary – Australian Graduate School of Management
  • Christopher Day – University of California, Berkeley
  • Stefania Pandelidaki – Manchester University
  • James Taylor – Oxford, Saïd Business School

For general background on doing a PhD at London Business School, please see:

 

Above perspective of London Business School and grounds