Author: wpengine

Do you know a recently admitted well qualified PhD student in business, management or economics seeking international experience and immersion in a dynamic research environment?

We now have openings for a few incoming cotutelle PhD students. A cotutelle means that the candidates earn double PhD diplomas, one from their home institution and another from Handelshøyskolen ved UiA / School of Business and Law, University of Agder in Norway.

Around 20 of my faculty members are ready to receive an incoming cotutelle candidate. I myself can also take a couple if the research topic fits my profile and interest.

We charge no educational fee, but the candidate should cover their own living costs while in Norway (in a few cases we can sometimes find some smaller scholarships in Norway).

Normally a cotutelle candidate spends around 12 months with us. He or she should be a recently enrolled candidate who has started his/her PhD studies since January 2023 or later.

If you think these opportunities excite someone in your network then please connect them with me and I will explain more.

Looking forward to hearing from you and interested candidates in your network!

Best wishes,
Roy Mersland
Professor/Director PhD program
Director Center for Research on Social Enterprises and Microfinance (CERSEM)
School of Business and Law
University of Agder
https://cersem.uia.no/

 New webpage and newsletter:

CERSEM launched today its new webpage and its new name. By changing our name from the Norwegian Centre for Microfinance Research (NOCMIR) to Center for Research on Social Enterprises and Microfinance (CERSEM), we want to emphasize that our research is global in nature. Moreover, we want to demonstrate that our research includes not only a ‘narrow’ microfinance perspective but also a wider social enterprise perspective. After all, Microfinance Institutions are typical examples of social enterprises working with both a financial and a social logic. Together with the new webpage, CERSEM has also launched its newsletter which will be sent to several thousand contacts. The newsletter will be short and only sent out when we have new publications or other major events to announce. We hope you will enjoy both the webpage and the newsletter.

New publication from CERSEM in Journal of Business Ethics:

What causes social enterprises in general, and microfinance institutions in particular, to sometimes drift away from their social objectives? This is a much debated issue and observers usually identify the pressure from capital providers and weak governance structures as the main reasons for such ‘mission drift’. In this new publication, we identify a possible additional explanation by asking the question: “May mission drift be caused by the credit officers?”

Read the publication here