Business and democracy: Power, profit and participation

Trust in Australian democracy has weakened over the last two decades. Part of this erosion of trust stems from the increasing spending on political donations, the growing amount of lobbying, and the movement of individuals between positions of public office and jobs in the same private sector. This project expects to generate new knowledge on how industry translates economic power into political influence. The project team will include two PhD students co-supervised by Nyberg and Fleming and enrolled at the partnering institutions—one at the UQ and one at the UTS. The two PhD students will form a central part of the international collaborations.

The University of Queensland (UQ) Business School is independently ranked as one of the top business schools in Australia and among the leading institutions worldwide. Our mission is to cultivate courageous thinkers who empower future leaders to positively transform business and society.

Based at the St Lucia campus as part of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, the Business School brings together 10,000 students and over 200 subject experts.

This project is supported by the Research project scholarship.

Learn more about the Research project scholarship.

You must contact the principal supervisor for this project to discuss your interest. You should only complete the online application after you have reached agreement on supervision.

Always make sure you are approaching your potential supervisor in a professional way. We have provided some guidelines for you on how to contact a supervisor.

Your application will be assessed on a competitive basis.

We take into account your:

• previous academic record
• publication record
• honours and awards
• employment history

A working knowledge of the foundations of democracy would be of benefit to someone working on this project.

You will demonstrate academic achievement in the field/s of organization theory, sociology, anthropology or political science and the potential for scholastic success.

A background or knowledge of qualitative methods is highly desirable.

To be considered for this scholarship, please email the following documents to Professor Daniel Nyberg (d.nyberg@business.uq.edu.au):

• Cover letter
• CV
• Academic transcript/s
• Evidence for meeting UQ's English language proficiency requirements eg TOEFL, IELTS

Please note the following: Submitting the above documents does not constitute a full application for admission into The University of Queensland's PhD program. If you are selected as the preferred applicant, you will then be invited to submit a full application for admission. You can familiarise yourself with the documents required for this process on the UQ Study website.