*(up to) 5-year fully-funded projects & state-of-the-art facilities*

Project summary

With increasing globalization and labor mobility, it is important to study not only the effects of the level of team diversity on performance but also how change in team diversity from adding, replacing, or losing members affects team performance. Research produced considerable knowledge about the effects of diversity on performance from cross-sectional comparisons of more and less diverse teams. Because membership change is an influence in and of itself, this earlier research cannot be extrapolated to understand the effects of diversity change. Addressing this issue in this project, we develop theory about the effects of diversity change on team processes and performance, focusing on change in functional background diversity and change in cultural diversity. The core proposition underlying the project is that teams with the same level of diversity can differ in their processes and performance as a function of whether their diversity is the result of a recent increase in diversity, a recent decrease in diversity, or unchanged over time. We identify transactive memory (members’ understanding of the distribution of knowledge in their team) and team information elaboration (exchange and integration of information and perspectives) that is stimulated by transactive memory, as the key mediating processes in diversity change effects on performance. We identify team task interdependence and team reflexivity (reflection on team functioning to learn and improve) as key moderators that attenuate the disruptive effects of diversity change. We test our hypotheses in three laboratory experiments and three longitudinal surveys in organizations that complement and extend the experiments.

More information about the PhD Project can be found on

·       Team Diversity Change: A dynamic perspective on team diversity and performance

More information about ERIM PhD in Management programme can be found on www.erim.eur.nl/phd.

Admission Requirements

To be considered for a PhD position in management at ERIM, you are expected to:

• hold an MSc, MA or MPhil degree in business or economics, or from related fields such as psychology, sociology, engineering, or mathematics (depending on PhD project)
• have excellent results in your first degree or graduate study
• show explicit interest in and motivation for scientific research
• have a GMAT or GRE test result that is not older than five years, and an indication of the required score is 85 per cent (required for all entering PhD students
• have TOEFL or IELTS test results. For internet-based TOEFL test, ERIM requires a total score of at least 100 and all section scores (writing, speaking, reading, and listening) should be at least 23. A minimum score of 600 is required on paper-based TOEFL test. For IELTS, the minimum overall band score is 7.5 and all section scores (writing, speaking, reading, and listening) should be at least 6.5. The language test results should not be older than two years.

In addition to these formal requirements, candidates for the programme are selected on the basis of their CVs, academic references, and interviews with the potential supervisors.

Conditions of employment

Our PhD projects are fully funded and salaried positions, meaning that appointed PhD candidates are employees (promovendi) of Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). Salary and benefits are in accordance with the collective labour agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU). Fixed, gross monthly salaries are € 2,443 in the first year, € 2,846 in the second year, € 2,979 in the third year, and € 3,122 in the fourth and fifth year. EUR has attractive employment conditions, which include a holiday allowance of 8 per cent, an end-of-year bonus of 8.3 per cent, and a generous number of vacation days.

Successful candidates are appointed on a full-time basis for a duration up to five years. The PhD position is intended to start 1 January 2023.

PhD candidates also benefit from the state-of-the-art research facilities and financial support programme (ERIM Support Programmes - ESP), which ERIM set up for a wide range of research-related activities such as conference participation, international job markets, external courses, scientific and educational literature, visits to international supervisors, and international research studies.