Position of ERIM

ERIM’s position will subsequently be discussed: at the EUR (i) , in the Netherlands (ii), in Europe and the world (iii).

At the Erasmus University Rotterdam

The EUR operates in three domains:

1. Economics and Management
2. Medicine and Health Sciences 
3. Law, Culture and Society

Two schools operate in the domain of Economics and Management: RSM and ESE. The ESE has 98.3 FTE faculty (professors, associate and assistant professors) and 4470 (bachelor and master) students (December 31, 2009). The RSM has 138.2 FTE faculty (professors, associate and assistant professors) and 6560 (bachelor and master) students (December 31, 2009). In 2005, RSM’s postexperience division, which provides full-time and part-time MBA and Executive Education, was integrated into the ‘Faculteit Bedrijfskunde’ (which employed the faculty and ran the curricula for pre-experience training in management) to form one new school named Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. The MBA students are not included in the figures quoted above.

ERIM’s main base is at the RSM. All faculty members of the RSM who meet the quality criteria are affiliated with ERIM. The Dean of the RSM is the legal representative (‘penvoerder’) of ERIM. Approximately 70% of ERIM’s members are associated with the RSM.

Within the ESE, ERIM is one of two major research schools; the other one is the Tinbergen Institute (TI), founded in 1987. The Tinbergen Institute is a disciplinary inter-university research school in economics, a joint initiative of the ESE, and the schools of economics of the University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Amsterdam. The researchers at the Tinbergen Institute operate in the fields of economics and econometrics. Thus, the research domains of ERIM, management, and TI, economics, are clearly distinct. ERIM members in the ESE are researchers who work on topics in business economics (‘bedrijfseconomie’). Some of them have a background in (applied) econometrics and provide methodological contributions to research in management.

In the Netherlands

Within the Netherlands, the research schools most closely related to ERIM are CentER (University of Tilburg), METEOR (University of Maastricht), and SOM (University of Groningen). In this academic environment ERIM has a unique position. Firstly, ERIM takes management as its exclusive object of study. This gives it a more explicit focus than CentER, SOM and METEOR, which cover broad domains, including micro-economics, macro-economics, econometrics, and research in management (roughly equating to the foci of ERIM and TI combined). Secondly, while economics strongly dominates in the research of the three other schools, ERIM studies managerial issues from a truly multidisciplinary perspective. At ERIM, economics is one perspective used among many, including those of psychology, sociology, applied mathematics and engineering. Finally, ERIM’s faculty is much larger than the number of researchers dedicated to management research at the other institutes. ERIM is by far the largest academic centre of research in management and doctoral education in management in the Netherlands.

In Europe and the rest of the world

In fact, ERIM is one of the largest centres of research in management in Europe. It stands in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of management schools. Such schools combine a broad management education with a research focus on management processes that are studied from a wide spectrum of disciplines. As already illustrated in the description of the current situation in the Netherlands this differs from the continental European tradition where research in management typically originates from departments fully dedicated to economics (‘bedrijfseconomie’). The Anglo-Saxon perspective is also reflected in ERIM’s approach to its doctoral programme, as will be further explained below (especially in Chapter 6). Within Europe, the London Business School (LBS) and INSEAD are other examples of this Anglo-Saxon tradition, and we can see an increasing number of business schools in Europe moving in this direction. Examples are: Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, Manchester and Cranfield in the UK, HEC and Essec in France, IESE and ESADE in Spain, Bocconi in Italy, the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland and the Norwegian School of Management in Norway. Among these organisations ERIM is consistently ranked in the top three research institutes in management in Europe, and it is increasingly receiving acclaim in the Netherlands and abroad for the sophistication of its vision and its development.

This success derives partly from the fact that from its very start ERIM has always carefully assessed true world class performance and taken inspiration from global best practice, which still often comes from outside Europe. ERIM has invested in a global network and built an excellent reputation in the global community of business schools and research institutes in management so as to facilitate familiarity with faculty, functions and facilities at schools that are truly world class in one way or another. ERIM is well represented at many world leading conferences such as the Academy of Management and INFORMS, and ERIM researchers are strongly encouraged to form intensive relationships with colleagues and research groups at leading business schools around the world. This is leveraged through, for example, a vibrant research seminar series (with over 240 international speakers in 2009 alone), conferences and workshops, structural visiting positions, exchanges and joint creation of research projects and related grant proposals (with funding from both the EU and the US government).