The Technology Management Program (TMP) at UC Santa Barbara provides driven, innovative and entrepreneurial students with a solid foundation in business principles and professional skills vital to their success after graduation. / Courtesy of tmp.ucsb.edu
As technology and its utilizations advance, once disparate ideas — such as humanities and sciences — are brought together, and knowledge in both becomes important and valuable. Understanding this notion, those in charge of the Technology Management Program (TMP) at UCSB have unveiled a Ph.D. program that will help students understand the organizational and technical aspects of a work environment.
TMP has had a Master of Technology Management (MTM) program since 2013, which was UC Santa Barbara’s first professional master’s degree program. A new MTM program was launched in 2015 that integrates engineering research with the study of innovation, technology commercialization and organizational management.
With this program, faculty at TMP were able to bring in experts who provided training and understanding when it came to leadership, communication and decision-making in technological fields.
According to TMP professor Kyle Lewis, now is the time to advance scholarship in technology management with studies and investigations into concepts, ideas and trends for the future.
“Not only do we want to develop scholars whose research examines the intersection of technology and social systems, we also want to establish TMP’s reputation for research excellence,” Lewis said.
Lewis believes that in the last 15 years there has been more research involving the combination of technology and organization. Particularly in the areas of how technology influences organizational systems and how those systems influence technology.
“Those questions are now an emerging focus of research, but not a particular emphasis of so many Ph.D. programs, which is where we think our advantage lies,” Lewis said.
UCSB is also the perfect place for doctoral research in technology management, according to Lewis, due to its programs in engineering and social sciences as well as its history of interdisciplinary collaborations.
“At UCSB, we can observe in our own university laboratory how innovation occurs, and we can also understand — once innovation has occurred — [how those ] innovations become adopted in or diffused across organizations,” Lewis said.
With this degree, TMP anticipates most of its graduates to generally pursue academic positions in the School of Communication, where the study of organization and technology is increasing, the Schools of Information, and Schools of Engineering where there is an interest in the social aspects of technical work. Some will find positions in business schools, where technology innovation and entrepreneurship is growing.
The goal of this doctoral program is to provide its students with the tools needed to teach and research a variety of fields where technology management is becoming more utilized from business to social sciences.
TMP is now accepting applications until Jan. 15 for Fall 2017 classes. For more information, please contact phd-tmp@tmp.ucsb.edu
