1. Managing the Dissertation Committee
RajshreeAgarwal, Professor and Dean’s Chair in
Entrepreneurship and Strategy, University of Maryland

2. Choosing your committee members
 Know what you want from your committee members
 Expert knowledge in theory, data or methods
 Overall “wisdom” in positioning
 “External” committee member
 Some schools require member outside of department
 Some schools regulate the number of outside school members
you can have
 Co-chairs?
 Consult with your dissertation advisor
 Collaborative decision
 You’ll need your advisor to help out in case conflicts arise
 be aware of ex ante conflict situations

3. How to reduce nasty surprises at the end?
 Make sure that you connect with your committee
members often
 The more engaged they are in your dissertation…
 The more you benefit from their insights and expertise
 The more they know of what you are doing before your defense
 The less likely they will be to introduce thorny issues at a very
late stage
 Help them help you…
 Be cognizant of their time pressures
 Prepare ahead for meetings
 Provide them with materials ahead of time, but don’t always count
on them reading these.
 Have summary slides, and directed questions, so their response
burden is not high
 DO NOT provide them with documents incomplete information,
un-edited text, incorrect grammar, etc.
 Small issues that lead to major impression management problems