At CEIBA, research often begins with a question emerging from professional practice.
Executives, entrepreneurs and professionals encounter management problems that are complex, context-dependent and difficult to address through experience alone. Working with academics, these questions can be reframed through theory, investigated systematically, and developed into knowledge that contributes both to professional practice and to broader understanding.
The CEIBA Research Center supports this connection between professional experience, academic inquiry and meaningful contribution.
Management research does not always begin with theory. It can begin with a problem that matters.
A manager may want to understand why an improvement initiative is not working as expected. A business leader may question whether investment in artificial intelligence genuinely creates customer value. A professional may want to understand how technological, organizational or social change affects people and decision-making.
At CEIBA, these questions can develop through a research journey:
The objective is not simply to solve an isolated managerial problem. It is to develop explanations and insights that can be examined rigorously and, where possible, contribute beyond the original organizational setting.
This approach is especially visible in CEIBA’s DBA programs, where experienced professionals remain connected to their industries while developing doctoral research with academic supervision.
CEIBA’s DBA candidates bring questions from their professional environments into doctoral research. Working with academics, they develop these questions through theory, empirical investigation and critical reflection, with the aim of contributing both to management practice and to broader knowledge.
DBA RESEARCHER
Continuous Improvement & Employee Empowerment
From challenges in water-treatment management to research on how leadership, empowerment and employee involvement foster continuous improvement.
DBA RESEARCHER
AI Capability & Responsible Innovation
From pressure to adopt AI to research on how firms build the capabilities required for responsible innovation.
DBA RESEARCHER
AI-Enabled Servitization & B2B Relationships
From technological change in the photovoltaic industry to research on how traditional and AI-enabled services shape customer relationships.
Digital technologies are reshaping how organizations operate, innovate and create value.
Research in this domain examines artificial intelligence and digital transformation as organizational and managerial phenomena rather than purely technological developments. Questions include how firms develop AI capabilities, how customers respond to AI-enabled services, how digital technologies influence innovation, and how organizations can adopt emerging technologies responsibly.
Current CEIBA doctoral research includes work on AI capability and responsible innovation and AI-enabled servitization and B2B customer relationships.
Organizations depend on people who interpret change, exercise judgment, collaborate and contribute to improvement.
Research in this domain examines leadership, employee involvement, organizational behaviour, learning and the psychological mechanisms through which individuals respond to changing organizational environments.
Current themes include leadership and continuous improvement, psychological empowerment, employee involvement, career adaptability, learning and organizational change.
Organizations increasingly need to balance performance with wider responsibilities toward employees, customers, stakeholders, society and the environment.
Research in this domain examines responsible innovation, sustainability, governance, stakeholder expectations and the capabilities organizations require to respond to long-term economic, technological and societal challenges.
Rather than treating responsibility as separate from strategy, CEIBA is interested in how responsible and sustainable considerations become embedded in managerial decision-making and organizational practice.
CEIBA’s international positioning creates a natural interest in management questions that cross institutional, cultural and geographical boundaries.
Research in this domain examines entrepreneurship, international business, family firms and organizational development across China, Europe and other international settings.
Particular attention is given to how managers and organizations respond to differences in institutions, markets, culture and business systems, and how knowledge and practices travel across national and organizational boundaries.
CEIBA views research as a dialogue between different forms of knowledge. Faculty members contribute theoretical perspectives, methodological guidance and critical academic supervision, while doctoral researchers bring professional experience, organizational access and questions rooted in contemporary management practice.
Through this interaction, managerial experience can be examined rather than simply reported, while academic concepts can be confronted with the complexity of real organizations.
Research does not end when data have been analysed or a thesis has been completed.
CEIBA encourages researchers to communicate and develop their work through doctoral theses, peer-reviewed publications, professional articles, books, conferences and other forms of academic and professional exchange.
The purpose of dissemination is not publication for its own sake. It is to make rigorous research available for discussion, criticism, further development and, where appropriate, application.
Doctoral thesis · Peer-reviewed publication · Professional article · Book · Conference
CEIBA’s research environment is developing alongside its doctoral community.
As candidates progress from research design to data collection, analysis and dissemination, additional research profiles and outputs will be added to the Research Center.
Whether the issue concerns technology, people, organizations, sustainability or international business, CEIBA seeks to create an environment in which significant questions from practice can become rigorous inquiry.
For experienced professionals, research offers an opportunity not simply to find faster answers, but to ask better questions, examine assumptions, engage with evidence and contribute new understanding.