PhD in the field of The changing nature of teamwork:

Department

Faculty of Economics and Business

Organisation

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, University of Groningen, V25.0492

Job description

Since its foundation in 1614, the University of Groningen has enjoyed an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative center of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Belonging to the best research universities of Europe and joining forces with prestigious partner universities and networks, the University of Groningen is truly an international place of knowledge.

Faculty of Economics and Business
The Faculty of Economics and Business offers an inspiring study and working environment for students and employees. International accreditation enables the Faculty to assess performance against the highest international standards. It also creates an exciting environment of continuous improvement. FEB's programmes, academic staff and research do well on various excellence ranking lists.

FEBRI, the graduate school and research institute of the Faculty of Economics and Business has one PhD position in the field of “The changing nature of teamwork: unstable, part-time, ill-defined” available.

Project description
Over 90% of today’s organizations rely on teamwork, investing billions of euros in team development each year. Most of the knowledge undergirding these activities rests upon research on archetypical (i.e., stable, full-time, and well-defined) teams. Most of today’s teams, however, are better characterized as unstable (employees leave and join teams), part-time (employees work in multiple teams), and ill-defined (team boundaries are unclear). This challenges our understanding of the nature and effective management of contemporary teamwork. Therefore, the objective of the PhD project is to develop insights into the dynamics of and experiences within modern team arrangements and provide evidence-based recommendations to organizational practice.

The PhD position is embedded in the research programme Organizational Behaviour of FEB’s Research Institute. The project will be supervised by Prof. Gerben van der Vegt, Dr Stefan Berger, and Dr Joost van de Brake.

Requirements

The ideal candidate is ambitious, highly motivated and wishes to make a career in research. You have a thorough training in research skills, speaks and writes English fluently and has obtained excellent results in the master phase.
The PhD candidate should have a background (MSc, research master) in business administration, organizational behaviour, human resource management, work/organizational psychology, or a related discipline within the social sciences (e.g., sociology, economics). In the selection process, particular emphasis is placed on scientific writing skills, and the ability and motivation to work with large datasets (quantitative methodology).

Conditions of employment

Contract length: 48 months.

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

- A gross monthly salary of € 3,059 which increases yearly to a maximum of € 3,881 based on a full-time appointment.
- An additional 8% holiday allowance each year in May, and an additional 8.3 % end of year bonus in December.
- A temporary full-time appointment for a period of four years, under the condition of a positive assessment at the end of the first year. PhD candidates contribute 20% of their time to teaching in years 2-4.

Starting date: Preferably per 1 January 2026. An assessment may be part of the procedure, consisting of psychological tests and an interview.

Job Application

The application package consists of the following separate documents: 1. A motivation letter (1A4 max). 2. Your cv. 3. A scan of your diploma including transcripts. 4. Proof of English proficiency. 5. A sample research paper (e.g., Master’s thesis, single-authored seminar paper, or similar). 6. Other relevant documents. The documents 1-5 are compulsory and please note that incomplete application packages will not be taken into account. If necessary – because of the limited upload options - please combine different documents into one pdf. If you are interested, you can apply until 19 October 11:59pm / before 20 October 2025 Dutch local time (European Central Time) by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website). The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/policy-and-strategy/diversity-and-inclusion/ Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/nl/sollicitatiecode and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code Unsolicited marketing is not appreciated.

Additional information

For additional information, please contact:

For information about the application, please send an email to
[email protected]

Dr Stefan Berger (for more information on this specific project)
[email protected]

In your application, please always include the job opening ID V25.0492

Digital application form