The programme is research-oriented with each student being directly supervised by a faculty member.

MPhil Stream

• Complete all the graduate courses required by the Department.
• When deemed necessary by advisor/supervisor, student may be required to take other courses.
• Each MPhil student is required to give an oral presentation on his/her research progress.
• Each MPhil student is required to submit a thesis and pass the oral defence of the thesis for graduation.

PhD Stream

Pre-candidacy

• Complete all the graduate courses required by the Department.
• When deemed necessary by advisor/supervisor, student may be required to take other courses.
• Each PhD student is required to pass a written candidacy examination within the maximum period of his/her candidacy stage for the advancement to his/her postcandidacy stage.
• Submit thesis proposal and defence.

Post-candidacy

• Each PhD student is required to submit a thesis and pass the oral defence of the thesis for graduation.

Fields of Specialization

Courses offered by the Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics concentrate on four areas: Business Economics, Management Information Systems, Operations Management and Quantitative Methods. In addition, cross-disciplinary research efforts are also carried out in many areas. The research activities of the faculty members can be broadly categorized into the following three areas:

1. Business/Managerial Economic Studies
Work is undertaken to develop economic perspectives for management theories and decisions. Micro-macro examination of firm-industry behavior, productivity and activities is also stressed. Current research includes studies of local industries such as textiles/clothing and consumer electronics, empirical researches on financial economics, investigations of local market structures, macro-level economic/business studies on Hong Kong, Macau and the Asia-Pacific region, trade and developmental issues for newly industrialized nations, the relationship between energy and economic activities and the application of fuzzy set theory to economics and business. Research work that covers decision analysis, decision science, business forecasting, and related areas is encouraged.

2. Decision Sciences
Theoretical development and practical applications in the fields of operations management, operations research and management information systems are the chief focuses in this area of research. Particular topics of interests include the quality and productivity of manufacturing and service operations, quality management, production and inventory management (just-in-time systems, group technology, scheduling, etc.), the mathematical modeling of operations systems, game theory and the application of statistics in business.

3. Research in Regional Management Practices and Managers
Because of the challenges and opportunities provided by Hong Kong's geographical location, members of the Department have published various monographs and articles related to business practices and management in the surrounding region. The Department expects to continue and expand its research efforts in the aforementioned areas and future efforts will be directed to collaborative research activities with colleagues within CUHK Business School and the University. Existing connections with overseas scholars and local business community will be maintained and expanded to broaden the Department’s theory-orientated and application-orientated research.

Please visit the Division’s homepage for more information.

In addition to the general requirements of the Graduate School, applicants are also required to submit the following documents:

1. a preliminary research proposal;
2. a statement of purpose;
3. a copy of previous written work such as a thesis, research project report, or any published articles;
4. an official hard copy of GMAT or GRE report (taken in or after January 2012).

GMAT Institution Code: R9H-0W-04

GRE Institution Code: 7488

TOEFL Institution Code: B022

Applicants should be committed to research and/or tertiary education.

Interview may be required.

1st round: 1 November 2017

2nd round: 1 December 2017

Last round: 2 January 2018 (while quota lasts)

1 December 2017
1.  By 12:00 noon (Hong Kong time) - to submit an initial application to RGC; and
2. By 5:00 p.m. (Hong Kong time) - to submit full application to CUHK
Please refer to HKPFS page for more details.