The annual Trans-Atlantic Doctoral Conference (TADC) provides a unique platform for doctoral students to showcase their research, engage in scholarly discussions, and forge valuable connections with their peers. Now in its 21st year and sponsored by the Wheeler Institute for Business and Development, the TADC 2023 made a return as an in-person event on the 18th to 21st May 2023 at London Business School’s main campus. After two virtual conferences in 2021 and 2022, this year’s conference marked a significant milestone as it brought together students of diverse disciplines from Europe and the United States, allowing them to personally interact, exchange ideas, and present their work in a more immersive and engaging setting.
Traditionally organised by second-year PhD students of LBS, the conference featured an impressive line-up of presentations from participants representing seven subject areas: Accounting, Economics, Finance, Management Science & Operations (MSO), Marketing, Organisational Behaviour (OBE), and Strategy & Entrepreneurship. As the first in-person conference since 2019, TADC 2023 offered a unique opportunity for doctoral students to re-establish connections, participate, and foster collaborations in a way that virtual events could not fully replicate.
Emerging research themes from promising doctoral students
TADC 2023 showcased a wide variety of research topics with over 110 participants from top institutions in Europe and the United States. In the fields of Accounting, Economics and Finance, the conference covered a wide set of themes, such as economic impacts and policy, financial markets and investments, social dynamics and behaviour, as well as macroeconomic factors and uncertainty.
Papers presented in the Economics and Finance subject areas encompassed a wide range of topics. Among others, TADC participants presented work on the effect food subsidies in nutritional choices in India, the impact of subsidies on electric cars in Germany, discrimination between white and black Americans when forming job networks, and the impact of graduate course selection in Italy.
In Management Science and Operations, Marketing Organisational Behaviour and Strategy and Entrepreneurship the presented papers investigated the interaction of corporate social actions, employee benefits, and outcomes, as well as the firm’s behavioural theory and the repercussions of meeting targets.
The papers also looked at the demand for innovation, inventor mobility, unintended consequences, employee anti-work orientation, leader integrity during organisational crises, the allocation of low-promotability tasks and the dynamics of social hierarchies. There was also a focus on scientific innovation, collaboration among creators, decision centralization centralisation in groups, the evaluation of new products, the impact of small talk on creativity, the effects of physical mobility on consumer preferences, cultural appropriation, the role of pronoun policies in the workplace, and the stability of supply relationships in the automotive industry were among the topics explored.
A conference for students organised by students
The TADC stands out as a unique student-planned event that is exclusively designed for doctoral students, where all presentations, discussions and interactions take place among peers, allowing them to showcase their work and get feedback from other students and expand scholarly networks. Past attendees have established connections that extend beyond the conference, leading to co-authorships and joint publications.
About the author
Gabriel Simões Gaspar
Gabriel Simões Gaspar is a PhD student in Economics at London Business School. Prior to joining LBS, he worked as a consultant at the World Bank in Washington DC, focusing on private sector development and agricultural policy. Gabriel’s research interests include political economy, social identity, and machine learning.