Project description
Nowadays, organizations face several grand challenges. To address these challenges effectively, organizations must adapt their strategies and practices to maintain a competitive edge. These adaptations can be initiated top-down or bottom-up. In the case of bottom-up change, employees play a pivotal role as change agents by displaying intrapreneurial behavior, thereby becoming intrapreneurs.

Intrapreneurship is a dynamic process where employees recognize and seize opportunities through innovation, proactivity, and risk-taking. This process is aimed at enabling organizations to create new products, processes, and services, initiate self-renewal, or venture into new businesses, ultimately enhancing the competitiveness and performance of the organization.

Currently, the study of intrapreneurship predominantly focuses on either the organizational or individual perspective, with limited exploration of the connection between these perspectives. Additionally, the role of intrapreneurs within organizational teams remains unclear. Therefore, there is a pressing need for research to investigate how individual intrapreneurs can drive bottom-up organizational change. It is crucial to understand the dynamic interplay between individual employees and the broader context in which intrapreneurship unfolds, including the team and the organization.

This PhD research project aims to address the overarching question: How do intrapreneurs create change to face the grand challenges? The project will delve into the intricate relationship between individual-level intrapreneurship, team intrapreneurship and the organizational context. Several theoretical perspectives will be used to study the multilevel dynamics of intrapreneurship, such as role theory and relationship-focused theory. The project will combine quantitative and qualitative research methods to provide a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.

Job description
You, as a successful applicant, will perform the PhD project outlined above in a multidisciplinary team and in close collaboration with organizations involved in the research consortium. The research will be concluded with a PhD thesis. A limited teaching load is also part of the job.

Your profile
Applicants for this PhD position should preferably meet the following requirements:

• Have a relevant MSc, Research Master or MPhil degree in the field of Business, Economics or a related field.
• Passion for research in the field of intrapreneurship and organizational change.
• Have a demonstrable track record of academic achievements and/or demonstrable interest in scientific research (e.g. good grades, participation in research projects or internships, a journal publication, or a relevant master thesis study).
• Have the ability to work with software for quantitative analysis (e.g. SPSS) and qualitative analysis (e.g. Atlas.ti, MaxQDA), or the willingness to learn.
• Have the ability to work closely together with stakeholders and, preferably, some experience working with or in multinational firms.
• Excellent communication and teamwork abilities.
• Have excellent speaking and (scientific) writing ability in English.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

Fixed-term contract: temporary position for 4 years.

Salary
The salary is determined in accordance with salary scale P of Appendix A of the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities and amounts to € 2.770 per month upon commencement, in case of full employment. The Open Universiteit provides good secondary benefits such as training, mobility, part-time employment and paid parental leave.

The PhD candidate will be appointed for a period of 12 months. The appointment will be extended to 4 years when progress and performance are satisfactory.

Location
The PhD candidate will be stationed at the Open University campus in Heerlen within the Faculty of Management. Hybrid working is the norm, which means a few days a week on location, and the other days where it suits best. Conditions may apply to cross- border workers.

Open Universiteit

Flexible studying online anywhere in the Netherlands and Belgium (Flanders)

The Open Universiteit (OU) is the part-time university in the Netherlands. Students follow personalised and activating academic distance education and disciplinary research is carried out within the various fields of science. Students can complete bachelor and master programmes in seven fields of study. The characteristics of education are openness, flexibility and quality (see www.ou.nl/rankings). Much attention is paid to improving the study success of students. The OU has over 18,000 students and more than 750 employees. The OU has branches in the Netherlands and Belgium (see www.ou.nl/studiecentra). The main office is located in Heerlen. The latest technologies and educational insights are applied both in the bachelor's and master's programmes and courses and in projects and programmes with partners. Nationally and internationally, the OU plays an important role in the innovation of higher education. Education is interwoven with research, which also ensures that the current state of science is incorporated. The OU invests not only in disciplinary research in eight scientific fields, but also in research in a multidisciplinary programme: Innovating for resilience.

Faculty of Management

The faculty of Management is one of the six faculties of the OU of the Netherlands. Education, research and valorisation are the main tasks. The faculty offers academic bachelor and master programmes in the field of Management and Business Administration, and is involved in the master programme of Health Sciences. The faculty’s research programme focuses on Learning and Innovation for Resilient Systems (LIRS). The faculty has PhD-students who conduct research on various current topics within the LIRS research programme.

Department of Strategic Management
The department of Strategic Management within the Faculty of Management at the Open Universiteit is responsible for education and research in three areas: strategy, innovation (management), and research methods. The department is engaged in leading and developing the faculty’s Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (a top-ranked BSc program in the Netherlands), teaching Premaster programs, and leads the ‘Strategy and innovation’ elective and ‘Public Governance’ elective in the Master of Science in Management program. Research by scholars in the department is published in high-ranked academic journals, including Research Policy, Technovation, Journal of Business Research, California Management Review, Small Business Economics, R&D Management, and the Journal of Cleaner Production.