Estonian Business School (EBS) was founded in 1988 and is the oldest private business school in the Baltics. That was the time when the first steps were taken to restore the country´s independence and to build a democratic society and open market economy. The society was experiencing a substantial lack of knowledge, skills, and experience needed for the market economy. EBS began filling this gap, passing on knowledge related to the market economy and offering experience to those who wanted to engage in business and entrepreneurship. The first alumni of EBS formed Estonia’s business elite and played an important role in the country´s economic development. Today, EBS has also a Finnish branch that is located in Helsinki offering business education on Bachelor and Master levels.
The research projects and topics of EBS have evolved with growth and needs of the society and our alumni. Therefore, research and development (R&D) is an essential part of EBS mission, based on the local and foreign academic competences and effective cooperation with the industry. The main aim of the R&D activities undertaken at EBS is to contribute to the international knowledge base in management research, support the improvement of management practices of private, public and civil society organisations and, through that to ensure high-quality training of our stakeholders.
EBS has organised and hosted European Academy of Management (EURAM) conference in 2011, European Accounting Association (EAA) conference in 2014 in collaboration with University of Tartu, Ronald Coase Institute workshop in 2016, Annual Conference of Society of Estonian Economists in 2017, and will organise European Group of Organizational Studies (EGOS) conference in 2018.
In 2002, the EBS Review (ISSN-1406-0264), which has been published since 1995, became a peer-reviewed journal and is included in EBSCO databases. Since 2012 the journal is published under the name Journal of Management and Change. EBS academic staff is also engaged in the editing of other research journals as associate editors and belong to the editorial boards of international scientific journals.
The logic of R&D at EBS is described by the following scheme:
EBS’ main academic concentration during the last years has been Organisational development in an institutional context with the following sub-topics:
• Development of organisations and management of change;
• Innovative entrepreneurship and knowledge transfer in international networks;
• Development of public organisations and their legal framework. Application of experience in new democracies;
• Institutional Economics;
• Social responsibility and ethical values of organisations;
• Intelligent IT systems in public and private organisations.
Recent developments in the field of R&D focus on closer cooperation between the academic departments and strengthening research around interesting concentres:
• New challenges on organisational level related to digitalisation, structural change and Exchange economy, i.e. platform governance and matching efficiency and equity; gender related inequalities in career planning; behavioural aspects in policy and strategic planning;
• Marketisation of higher education and educational;
• Cultural management and development of creative industries;
• Research on co-operation between start-up entrepreneurs and business angels;
Doctoral programme in Management, focusing on the research of business, public and civil society organisations, is the only PhD programme in management in Estonia, and offers a comprehensive perspective on management. The programme was fully accredited in June 2009. Programme is managed by the EBS Research Council, that is responsible for on-going development activities and quality assurance. Doctoral students have a study consultant who helps them with planning their studies. The program is open to prospective students who have a masters degree from from social sciences. The supervisor is appointed by the Research Council. Supervisors are assigned to doctoral students according to their object and problem of research. Currently all full and associate professors of EBS core faculty are involved as supervisors or co-supervisors of doctoral students.
The continuity of R&D undertaken at EBS is guaranteed by the programme, as all students are integrated in the in-house research activities by their local supervisor. The programme is taught in English and student body involves students from several countries. Aiming at increasing the social impact and international outreach of our doctoral projects, co-supervision by international academic and corporate partners has been implemented. Most of the research problems tackled by our doctoral students are stemming real-life problems in different organisations they are working with. EBS expects, that all PhD dissertations have substantial practical impact.
All PhD theses defended at EBS are available on the EBS web page.
