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Sample Statement of Purpose for Organizational Studies
Being a major of economics, I would like to ascend onto higher
intellectual horizons by undertaking advanced studies in your Ph.D.
program in Organization Studies, which will enable me to fulfill my
ambition of being an outstanding expert in such a field. I hope I can
contribute my knowledge and lifelong enthusiasm to the ongoing
economic and management development of my homeland.
I love economics, because I do care about this changing world. The
past twenty years during which I was brought up has been the most
sensational and significant age of China's reform. This period
witnessed the emergence of a prosperous new China, which I experienced
personally and kept a close eye on, during which the occurrence and
maturation of many new things in economy and management have
stimulated my strong interest towards this area of study. I realized
that the most challenging obstacle that China faces is the
transformation of its various organizations.
After I entered university, I have been exposed systematically to
abundant courses in many fields, which established a solid foundation
for my major and helped me to become the top student in my school for
four consecutive years. With strong academic knowledge gained
gradually through the rigorous training from my department, I began to
think profoundly about many newly engendered problems in my field of
study, using a broad perspective. Never content with simply performing
well in course work, I have been keen on hands-on experience. I
completed four field trips, covering various social phenomena ranging
from the most primitive production mode to the most advanced modern
business, from agriculture to industry and from individual companies
to large-scale national projects. Last summer, invited by the Hong
Kong American Chamber, I took part in the Business Orientation Program
2000, enjoying the rare opportunity of communicating with college
students from all over the world, from whom I gained constant
inspiration and mutual stimulation. Especially, the internship in
Xerox HK provided me a precious chance to have a close scrutiny on the
complete human resources system of a transnational corporation.
Moreover, my detailed evaluation, my suggestions for improvement on
its Digital Training Program, and my potency in analyzing and solving
practical problems were highly praised by the Training Manager. On the
last day of our visit, at the top of the American Club Building,
surveying the beautiful scenery of the Victoria Harbor under golden
sunset, I felt the pulse of my beloved motherland not far away.
However, in the bottom of my heart I understood clearly that the
economic distance between Mainland China and the developed countries
is not that short. Being a young man caring about the rise and fall of
my home country, I know how heavy the responsibility is and how much
we have to undertake.
With the knowledge I have acquired in my college studies and the
practical experience I have derived from all my social investigations,
my critical eye towards Chinese Economy has sharpened. Apparently, the
reform campaign in China will be carried out with gathering momentum
for an extended period and on a more expansive dimension in the
future. When greater degree of liberty and reform as the macro
orientation of the country's development become incontrovertible, the
integration on the micro level that corresponds to the macro
orientation should become our primary concern. Inspired by the
research and investigations that I have undertaken so far, I have
grown increasingly convinced that the success or the failure of the
transformation of various organizations, whether the enterprise or the
government, the private sector or the public sector, would become the
primary challenge for China's economy in the decades to come. Take the
reform of Chinese enterprises for example. Undoubtedly, this process
of reform virtually has no frame of reference in international
economic history. It can be inferred from this perspective that mere
imitation of the organizational mode of Euro-American enterprises
would render difficult and ineffective the organizational
transformation of Chinese enterprises during the operational and the
control stages. As a matter of fact, Chinese enterprises as a whole
are going in the direction of recession as compared with the
relatively vigorous economic growth. The management system in Chinese
enterprises has remained ineffectual since the implementation of all
existing approaches ranging from the contracting operation to
modernized enterprise administration. Such mechanisms as merging and
recombination that can otherwise revitalize foreign enterprises have
proved to be more of a curse than a blessing for Chinese enterprises
in the actual process of enterprise reform practice. I firmly believe
that, on a broader and more objective academic level, China's
enterprise reform is a subject of tremendous research value throughout
the economic history of mankind. Organization Studies, particularly
Organization Transformation, become the optimum tool for putting this
issue into proper perspective.
My sense of mission to contribute to the future of my motherland and
the tremendous potential academic value of Organization Transformation
Study in China make Organization Study the inevitable choice for my
prospective research. To be finally engaged in the study of this
subject, I have already undertaken some tentative investigations in
this field. My first academic paper entitled Study of the
Entrepreneurial Human Resource Capital in China's State-Owned
Enterprises was published in Socialism Study, a very authoritative and
avant-garde academic journal especially devoted to the crucial issues
of China's reform. In this paper, I conducted an in-depth compassion
regarding the enterprise's human resource capital between the past and
the most recent macro economic context. I proposed my criticisms with
respect to the government's prevailing policy of "distribution
according to labor" and presented relevant models for implementation.
The publication of this paper produced its important academic effect.
It was reprinted and much quoted by many other academic journals and
received a very important academic award of first-class prize as
Outstanding Academic Paper at the Symposium on the Economic and
Cultural Development Strategy in China's Western Region. More
valuably, the models of implementation that I proposed became
opportune frame of reference for many enterprises when they conducted
their reform in the field. The success of this academic paper gave me
substantial encouragement and reinforced my determination to pursue
further in the study of Organization Transformation. In the wake of
the first academic paper, I published another two research findings in
Business Study. In one of those two academic papers, I probed into the
determining factors affecting the success and failure of an
enterprise's fundamental transformation. I embarked on a case study
concerning the transformation of Xerox Hong Kong. In this study, I
proposed that the transformation of the mentality and the knowledge
structure of both the enterprise's management and the employees is the
most powerful force facilitating the enterprise's transformation as
well as the most important guarantee for the stable process of
transformation. I further elaborated that an enterprise bent on
constant and conscientious acquisition of new knowledge is the most
flexible and cost-effective enterprise to face a rapidly-changing
external environment and to launch transformation in order to answer
its internal need for development. Those serial achievements on my
part helped me secure high evaluations from my teachers and advisor
and aroused the attention of the China Academy of Social Sciences. At
its invitation, I attended an academic conference in Hanoi, the
capital of Viet Nam. As far as I am concerned, all those academic
honors and awards are only of secondary importance. Some of my
research findings might be proved by future researches to be flawed or
even incorrect due to the insufficiency of currently available
information and the limitations of research methodologies. For me, the
most valuable thing is that those research activities have provided me
with precious opportunities to come into contact with and develop an
increasingly profound understanding of the discipline that has so
deeply fascinated me. I feel as excited as Alibaba who has just
finished speaking the magic words to the door of the treasure cave.
Finally, I would like to say that my four-year college study and
practice have molded a strongly ambitious young man. Looking back on
these hard-working days, I am so confident of myself. With
anticipation and excitement, I am now applying for admission into your
Ph.D. program in Organization Studies. I firmly believe that this
specially designed program in your strict and inspirational graduate
school will fulfill my academic ambitions. As Galileo once said " Give
me a pivot, then I will pry up the Earth," I sincerely request you to
endow me with that "pivot". |
