IWER

PhD in Management–IWER Research Group

Credit: MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research (IWER)

The MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research (IWER) offers an interdisciplinary PhD program within MIT Sloan that blends institutional understanding with advanced analytical training in social science methodology. 

IWER has run its own PhD program since 1937. It’s a small, highly collaborative, multidisciplinary program. and our graduates go on to join the faculty at universities all over the world.  The IWER PhD program is ideal for applicants interested in:

  • A truly interdisciplinary program with deep grounding in sociology, labor relations, and labor economics. This orientation prepares students for doing creative and sophisticated empirical research and also for contributing to policy and practice.
  • Strong methodological training, including exposure to qualitative and quantitative methods (observational, quasi-experimental, and experimental designs).
  • A small program where faculty commit intensive time and effort to training our PhD students and where students are part of a strong community of scholars across MIT Sloan and within the Boston area.
  • A program that has deep experience with preparing and guiding students through field-based studies. Most of our students do research based on unique and rich data from organizations. This reflects our orientation to serious, cutting-edge research that is grounded in understanding workers’ and managers’ experiences and has clear implications for policy and practice.

IWER PhD students have the opportunity to work closely with IWER core faculty yet also benefit from the expertise and resources of the larger Work and Organization Studies Group at MIT Sloan, of which IWER is a part.  IWER also has affiliated faculty from other parts of MIT, including the Departments of Economics, Political Science, Anthropology, and Urban Studies and Planning. IWER students can take courses in those departments as well as at other universities in Cambridge and Boston

Recent PhDs have studied a wide variety of issues in their dissertations such as: immigration policies, entrepreneurship in India, new technologies and work systems in health care, negotiations and the internet, union organizing and labor policy, skill requirements in manufacturing, compensation strategies and incentives, and many more. Graduates of the IWER doctoral program have joined the faculty at leading universities such as Cornell and Stanford.

A weekly IWER seminar brings together faculty and students from across MIT and from other universities to listen to presentations on new research.

To learn more about the MIT Sloan PhD program, read an overview of the PhD program. To apply, go to the MIT Sloan School of Management Application.