Fourth Annual Collective Impact Doctoral Workshop:
Choosing an Impactful Dissertation Research Topic

2026 Workshop Information and Application

We are now accepting applications for our annual workshop and mentoring program. If you are an interested doctoral student, please fill out an application by 11:59 PM EST Wednesday, February 11th. This program is supported by the Mack Institute at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 

The workshop & mentoring program is meant to help Strategy, Entrepreneurship, and Macro-OB doctoral students entering the dissertation stage to select research topics that are impactful while still being feasible and rigorous research projects. It is aimed at students who have completed their coursework and comprehensive exams but have not yet finalized the topic for their thesis. 

By impactful research, we mean "relevant to important contemporary problems that our societies face." Another way to operationalize that would be to say, "of interest to audiences in addition to the readers of our academic journals." Much like any doctoral paper development workshop (PDW), the workshop is an opportunity for students to explore topic selection and development in consultation with faculty members outside their home institutions. However, it has several distinct features: 

• It will be necessary to watch an introductory video and complete the Dissertation Canvas exercises and submit them as part of participation. 
• Selected candidates will be scheduled with two faculty members (from the list below) for an hour-long meeting. The faculty will assess and provide feedback on a research proposal provided by the candidate. 
• Gautam Ahuja (Cornell), Abdullah Almaatouq (MIT Sloan), Callen Anthony (NYU Stern), Beth Bechky (UC Davis), Christine Beckman (UC Santa Barbara), Victor Bennett (U of Utah), Christiane Bode (Imperial College London), Matt Cronin (George Mason U), Jerry Davis (U of Michigan), John Eklund (USC Marshall), Isabel Fernandez-Mateo (LBS), Cheng Gao (U of Michigan), Claudine Gartenberg (Wharton), Witold Henisz (Wharton), Daniel Keum (Columbia), Megan Lawrence (Vanderbilt U), Esther Leibel (University of Western Ontario), Dan Levinthal (Wharton), Felipe Massa (U of Vermont), Kate Odziemkowska (U of Toronto), Felix Poege (Bocconi), Phanish Puranam (INSEAD), Maria Roche (HBS), Rob Seamans (NYU Stern), Olav Sorenson (UCLA), Anne ter Wal (Imperial College London), Keyvan Vakili (LBS), Phebo Wibbens (INSEAD), Batia Wiesenfeld (NYU), and Maurizio Zollo (Imperial College London). 
• A closing plenary will be held in the spring, led by Jerry Davis & Phanish Puranam, providing students an opportunity to exchange ideas amongst themselves and a broader set of faculty. 

Feel free to send this message to doctoral students who may be interested and visit the rest of the Collective Impact Website to learn more. More information can be found on the group's Substack. 

Resources 

We encourage participants, as well as interested students at any stage, to check out the following resources: 

• The dissertation canvas, which is used as an anchor of the workshop 
• The Academy of Management Journal's research article canvas  
• The introductory video by Phanish Puranam and Jerry Davis 

Contact 

Please email collectiveimpact@wharton.upenn.edu with any questions about the program or application.