Program Overview

University of Fribourg Program Details

The University of Fribourg offers various programs in different fields, including Management, Economics, and Social Sciences. The Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences provides doctoral programs in the subfields of economic sciences, management, economics, or information systems.

Doctoral Programs

• Department of Management: Offers doctoral studies in all management disciplines, such as financial management, accounting, HRM, marketing, corporate strategy, technology management, international management, and more.
• Department of Economics: Provides doctoral studies in all fields of economics, including microeconomics, macroeconomics, econometrics, and more.
• Department of Informatics: Offers doctorates in the fields of information management and computer science.

Research Areas

The professors in the Department of Economics have research fields in:

• Industrial Organisation
• Network Science
• Law & Economics
• Applied Microeconomic Theory
• Applied Game Theory
• Digital Economy
• Development microeconomics
• Applied econometrics
• Empirical health, labour, education economics and demographics
• Public Economics
• Political Economics
• Public Choice
• Economic Policy
• Behavioural Economics
• Growth Economics
• Distribution of Income and Wealth
• Human Capital Formation
• International Migration
• Health Economics
• Economics of Ageing
• Bequest Taxation
• Competition Policy
• Competitiveness issues
• Multinational enterprises
• Role of home country competitive advantages
• Public policies regarding competitiveness
• Industrial Organisation
• Organisational Economics
• Behavioural Economics
• Experimental Economics
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Empirical labour, health, and education economics
• Microeconometric methods for causal inference
• Policy/treatment evaluation
• Policy Public economics
• Public finance
• Political Economics
• New economic geography
• International taxation
• Economics of secessions
• Experimental economics
• Applied game theory
• Economics of innovation
• Monetary Theory and Policy
• Inflation
• Financial Stability and Crises
• Bank Regulations
• Payment and Settlement Systems
• Exchange Rate Regimes and Global Imbalances
• European Monetary Integration
• History of Monetary Thought
• Public Economics
• Public Finance
• Political Economics
• Law and Economics
• New Institutional Economics
• Applied Econometrics

The professors in the Department of Management have research fields in:

• Price management
• Online marketing
• Complaint management
• Strategy implementation with management control systems
• Corporate governance
• Incentive systems
• Cost accounting and cost accounting systems
• International and cross-national comparative HRM
• Globalisation processes and HRM
• International mobility
• Managerial cognition
• French-German Intercultural Management
• Evaluation of HR processes
• Top management careers
• Gender and career
• Non-market environment of business
• Very Large Enterprises in the World Economy
• Global Value Chains
• The economic fabric of Switzerland
• Ethics in Business and Finance
• Epistemology of Economics, management and Finance
• Philosophy of the Enterprise
• Comparative Economic Systems
• Finance and Real Economy Nexus
• Entrepreneurship in theory and practice
• Entrepreneurship
• Innovation Management
• Open Innovation
• Start-ups
• Small enterprises
• Marketing services
• Strategic marketing
• Intercultural marketing
• Corporate-level strategy
• NPO Management
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Third Sector Studies
• Finance
• Business finance
• Business governance
• Financial markets
• Dividend policy
• Financial decisions and performance of family businesses
• Executive remuneration
• Governance role of accounting information
• Valuation role of accounting data
• Determinants & consequences of analysts' forecast errors
• Role and consequences of IPSAS
• Environmental disclosure
• Headquarters-subsidiary relationships
• Coordination of foreign subsidiaries
• Market selection
• Market entry strategies
• Internationalisation of services and services companies
• Internationalisation of retail companies
• Management in Emerging Markets
• Asset Management
• Derivatives and Structured Financial Products
• Asset Pricing
• Firm Valuation
• Information Implied in Option Prices
• Behavioral Finance

The professors in the Department of Informatics have areas of specialisation in:

• Survey statistics
• Fuzzy statistics
• Statistical modeling
• Imputation of missing data in complex enquiries
• Evaluating economic policy programmes
• Problems related to evaluation of wage gaps
• Meta modeling
• Conceptual modeling
• Visualisation
• Process management
• Development of enterprise information systems
• Semantic information systems
• Blockchains and smart contracts
• Application of virtual and augmented reality in enterprise modeling
• Deviceless interaction for enterprise information systems
• Applying and improving software engineering techniques
• Frameworks for integrating and coordinating heterogeneous software components
• Combinatorial optimisation
• Structural and Algorithmic Graph Theory
• Decision Support
• Complexity Theory
• Mathematical Modeling
• Quantitative models and methods of operational research
• Combinatorial optimisation
• Heuristic and metaheuristic methods
• Simulation methods
• Decision support systems

Admission Criteria

To be admitted to a doctorate, the candidate must have been awarded an academic bachelor's and master's degree or an equivalent qualification from a university recognised by the University of Fribourg. Before applying for a doctorate, the candidate must contact a professor who would be willing to supervise the thesis work. There is no general right to be admitted to a doctorate.

Degree Conferred

The degree conferred is Rerum Politicarum Doctor / Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) / Doctor of Philosophy in Management (PhD) / Doctor of Philosophy in Information Management (PhD).

Commencement of Studies

An application for admission may be submitted at any time.

Regulation

The regulation is available in French and German only.

Application Procedure

Candidates with Swiss qualifications and candidates with foreign qualifications must follow the application procedure.

Key Points

• Degree conferred: Rerum Politicarum Doctor / Doctor of Philosophy in Economics (PhD) / Doctor of Philosophy in Management (PhD) / Doctor of Philosophy in Information Management (PhD)
• Commencement of studies: An application for admission may be submitted at any time
• Regulation: Available in French and German only
• Application procedure: Candidates with Swiss qualifications and candidates with foreign qualifications must follow the application procedure

Studies Organisation

The structure of studies includes 30 ECTS credits that can be earned.

Doctoral School

The doctoral school offers various programs and courses for doctoral students.

Support and Resources

The university provides financial support, wellbeing and health services, learning and success resources, equality and parenthood support, and administrative and legal support to its students.

Contact

The University of Fribourg's Studies Information Office is located at Av. d'Europe 20, CH-1700 Fribourg. The university's website is studies.unifr.ch.