Courses and Requirements

Please note that the study program might be subject to minor changes. Lessons start at the beginning of September. Attendance is mandatory. The program cannot be attended by distance learning.

First year - a.y. 2025 - 2026 (41° cycle)

Requirements:
In the first year you have to attend 1 Preparatory course in Mathematics (optional) + 9 compulsory courses: 3 methods courses (shared by the two curricula) + 6 curriculum specific courses + research presentation + seminars organized by the Departments of Management & Technology and Marketing

By the beginning of March: students choose elective courses to be attended in the 2nd year


QUARTER	COURSE TITLE	HOURS	PROFESSOR	CURRICULUM
Sept. - Oct.	Mathematics - Preparatory course	12	C. Turansick	OPTIONAL
Sept. - Oct.	Microeconomics Foundation for Business Studies	36	C. Panico	COMPULSORY
Nov. - Dec.	Introductory Econometrics for Business Studies	24+12	L. Gagliardi	COMPULSORY
Feb. - Mar.	Advanced Econometrics for Business Studies **	24+12	M. Espinosa	COMPULSORY
Sept. - Oct.	Organization Theory	24	G. Soda	MANAGEMENT
Sept. - Oct.	Organizational Behavior	36	R. Ilies	MANAGEMENT
Nov. - Dec.	Strategy	36	G. Di Stefano	MANAGEMENT
Feb. - Mar	Innovation **	24	M. Mariani	MANAGEMENT
Apr. - May	Entrepreneurship **	24	C. Salvato	MANAGEMENT
Apr. - May	Empirical Approaches for Management Research **	36	A. Gambardella	MANAGEMENT
Sept. - Oct.	Marketing Theory	24	A. Ordanini	MARKETING
Nov. - Dec.	Marketing Modelling	24	S. Valentini	MARKETING
Nov. - Dec.	Experimental Methods	24	J. Vosgerau	MARKETING
Feb. - Mar.	Marketing Strategy **	24	L. Akella	MARKETING
Feb. - Mar.	Empirical Approaches for Marketing Research	24	G. Rubera	MARKETING
Apr. - May	Consumer Behavior I **	24	C. Longoni	MARKETING
	Principles of Research Ethics*	2		SELF-MANAGED ONLINE course
* The course is available at ECR.unibocconi.it (login with Bocconi credentials, using the Student ID as username). Students have to pass the final test and send the certificate to the PhD Program Officer for the registration by the end of the academic year: 31st August 2026
Exam for each compulsory course (maximum 3 retakes). Retakes will take place at the end of the Spring semester, tipically in June
Moreover a Research presentation is required to be drafted under the supervision of the advisor and to be submitted just before the beginning of the 2nd year (early September).

Second year - a.y. 2025 - 2026 (40° cycle)

Requirements:
PhD students may choose how many electives they want to take according to their research interests; the minimum requirement is 4 electives over 2nd and 3rd year.
Moreover, research activity and seminar organized by the Departments of Management & Technology and Marketing.

On top of the exam at the end of each course, at the end of the second year, you should obtain an "Accept" in the second-year research paper.

QUARTER	COURSE TITLE	HOURS	PROFESSOR	CURRICULUM
Sept. - Oct.	Creativity in Theory Building	24	P. Mannucci	BOTH
Nov. - Dec.	Advances in Corporate Environmental and Political Strategy	24	N. Dutt	BOTH
Feb. - Mar.	Text Analysis **	24	Q. Shi	BOTH
Feb. - Mar.	Behavioral Strategy	24	C. Gutierrez	BOTH
Apr. - May.	Organizational Sociology	24	F. Castellucci	BOTH
Apr. - May	Data Mining for Marketing Research **	24	K. Zhu	BOTH
Apr. - May	Machine Learning for Casual Inference	24	M. Varga	BOTH
Apr. - May	Topics in Social Network Analysis	24	A. Iorio	BOTH

NEW! Open Science for Researchers: elective online workshop (75 minutes) offered by the Bocconi library, open to all PhD students from 2nd year.

** an updated version of this syllabus will be uploaded soon

ELECTIVE COURSES

Courses of other PhD Programs are allowed subject to PhD program Director's approval.

Third year (39° cycle) / Fourth year (38° cycle) - a.y. 2025 — 2026

NEW! Open Science for Researchers: elective online workshop (75 minutes) offered by the Bocconi library, open to all PhD students from 2nd year.

The third and fourth years are largely devoted to research and the preparation of the thesis. You will have to:

attend the curriculum PhD Seminar in Business Administration & Management
study/research period at other Universities + Ta/RA activities (optional)
attend conferences (as a listener and as a speaker)
attend seminars organized by the Departments of Management &Technology, Marketing and Accounting
submit 2 research papers (1 per year)
give two seminar presentations per year to illustrate one's own research output (at least one in Bocconi)
submit the thesis to external reviewers (end of 4th year)
defend your thesis

Courses and Requirements

Detailed requirements