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This chapter explores how industrial PhD students are engaged in authentic leadership processes while coping with challenges through self-leadership. The authors illustrate how self-leadership can be a helpful approach to managing the leading-and-being-led dilemma. They argue that self-leadership is a process of goal achievement in collaboration with key stakeholders and, therefore, an important aspect of authentic leadership. The authors identify four aspects of self-leadership that influence authenticity: roles, resources, relations and results. Kringelum, Mortensen and Holmgren call for research into the emergence of self-leadership and authentic leadership, the leadership capabilities required and the double-sidedness and dilemmas inherent in such emergences across different contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the significance of student‐led initiatives in PhD development.

A case study is presented utilizing Kolb's model of learning from experience to identify with student‐led research training within the PhD process.

The experiential role of the student in the development of their personal doctoral training and the resultant social interactions thereof, remain as important as the more structured supervisor‐student relationship and other forms of doctoral training within the PhD research process.

This paper contributes new insights into the process of how PhD students can become more empowered by the process of “doing” a PhD, rather than being confined to their own specific discipline, whilst offering future recommendations for students embarking upon PhD research.

Increasing interest in PhD processes calls for valid and reliable survey instruments that cover key aspects of the PhD experience. Based on recent research, existing questionnaires and interviews with PhD students, the Quality in PhD Processes Questionnaire (QPPQ) was developed to cover a range of influential factors such as perceptions of the research environment and psychological well-being. This paper aims at validating the QPPQ for measuring quality in PhD processes.

This study assesses the validity of the QPPQ’s scales with special attention to factorial, convergent and discriminatory validity. Six scales were developed based on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses applied to 23 items in a sample of 1,670 PhD students representing various academic disciplines.

Results were promising concerning the scales’ psychometric properties and indicators of validity.

The QPPQ offers itself as a theoretically grounded and thoroughly tested instrument for the purposes of evaluating and developing PhD programs at a local level or for researching PhD processes in general.

The purpose of this study is to convey lessons learned from a long-term research project and present a coherent approach for researching relevant areas, ranging from ontology to quality.

A PhD process is used as a case to present conceptual ideas on performing research in logistics/supply chain management (SCM).

The research integrates different views on knowledge and the world and how to perform research in logistics/SCM. Models explaining micro and macro abduction, and the relationship between research, the context and researcher subjectivity are suggested.

Knowledge on why and how critical realism can be used in logistics/SCM research is advanced. Abduction is presented as a micro/macro process, which should not have any specific “finish line”, and is supported with both ontological and epistemological arguments.

Research in logistics/SCM can be improved by connecting different aspects of viewing and creating knowledge. Reflecting on how exactly a publication is related to a project, researchers can better describe how they contribute to knowledge creation, and also understand the relationship between micro and macro abduction.

Through presenting an approach to knowledge creation in the context of a PhD thesis, this research distinguishes itself in a field with a growing need to define its own views of the world and of knowledge. The paper advances current understanding of knowledge creation in logistics/SCM, expanding on earlier models and presenting a broader view of the research process and the associated dilemmas. The paper also contains novel considerations of the differences between publication types and how these affect the presentation of the research.

Training in both employability and discipline‐specific skills has been provided and expanded over a number of years for post‐graduate research students, (PGRs) in the Faculty of Physical Sciences administered by the Physical Sciences Graduate School (PSGS) at the University of Glasgow. This project explored the training provided in 2005/06 with a view to further developing a programme that students and faculty alike consider appropriate, timely and developmental for the needs of research students. The training provided by the PSGS had grown over a number of years in response to suggestions from academic staff in the Faculty of Physical Sciences. Data were collected from Postgraduate Research students (PGRs) from all the stages of the 3 year PhD process to enable a complete map of views to emerge. In particular, the way PGR students perceive the training they undergo in relation to their core PhD research and career progression was examined. The students in our study also identified clearly where they perceived they were developing such transferable skills, and training sessions are not seen as the sole or even major source; the research group itself would appear to play a major role. The authors believe the finding could inform the provision of PGR training in other UK institutions.

This paper presents the findings from a UK study of one hundred part‐time research students. The participants were students attending one of a series of training days provided specifically for part‐time research students. Free text responses were collected on: what it’s like being a part‐time research student; what they would like from training events; and what they thought of this series of training days. The students were particularly appreciative of the opportunity to meet fellow part‐time research students, albeit in different disciplines and at different stages of their PhD. Rather than solely listing specific research skills they would like covered, most of their ideas for future training sessions concerned more nebulous personal and emotional aspects of the experience of studying for a PhD on a part‐time basis. Four dimensions of training need were identified: research techniques; research skills; engagement with the part‐time PhD process; and engagement with their part‐time peers. It is suggested that research training involving part‐time research students, could usefully build in time to focus explicitly on some aspect(s) of the more personal and emotional elements of the parttime doctoral experience, as well as on technical aspects of research work.

Operations and supply chain management (OSCM) is a theoretically and philosophically fragmented field. Researchers must consider how they use theory and explain empirical phenomena. This paper aims to use critical realism to introduce more coherence into this fragmented field.

This paper draws on existing critical realism and abduction literature and this study uses a research process from two PhD projects to investigate critical realism’s role in OSCM research. This paper uses a narrative approach to collect data over a long timeframe, capturing data not commonly used in OSCM research.

Research that struggles to bridge the gap between theory and data benefits from critical realism, which provides a philosophy and associated methods to identify a suitable theory and guide researchers when they encounter obstacles. While clear steps often outline established methods, researchers are sometimes unable to identify when their research process has reached an obstacle. This paper argues that such obstacles can be treated as “crossroads” offering new research opportunities when correctly evaluated and addressed.

Importantly, researchers should be able to reflect upon their own research processes, enabling a better understanding of these processes and the discovery of new research directions. Researchers can use critical realism, abduction and systematic combining to bridge the divide between theory and data in OSCM.

This paper contributes to the field’s discussion regarding the roles of critical realism and abduction, synthesizing multiple academic sources, highlighting critical realism’s importance and providing a novel means of addressing difficulties in navigating an eclectic research area. This paper offers a philosophical alternate to the field, which is often instead considered from a positivistic standpoint. The paper is valuable to researchers in the OSCM field, who can use the research to improve their selection of data and theories, as well as their understanding of their own research processes.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise the arguments developed in the PhD thesis and also to outline the journey and context from which the thesis emerged.

This paper provides a summary of key arguments in the thesis. It also provides reflections on the process of developing the thesis.

This PhD by publication process demonstrates how new philosophical thinking can contribute to the discipline literature, methodological advancements and also produce a practice tool.

Provision of a personal account of the PhD by publication journey and summary of the thesis: “Exploring the ‘lived experience’ of project work with Continental philosophical perspectives”.