Direct admission
You are admissible to the Master’s programme in Culture, Organization and Management (COM) with one of the following Bachelor’s degrees:
- Business Administration
- Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology
- Management and Organisation Science
- Organisation Studies
- Political Science
- Psychology track Social- or Work and Organisational Psychology*
*please add proof of the track you follow(ed) to your VU Dashboard
- Sociology
Furthermore, you are admissible to the Master’s programme in COM with any Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree including a minor programme in organisation sciences, such as the VU Amsterdam Faculty of Social Sciences Minor Bestuurswetenschap (30 ECTS, taught in Dutch) or the Minor Organisatiewetenschap (30 ECTS, taught in Dutch).
In all cases, your bachelor must be equivalent to a Dutch academic (WO) bachelor and therefore must be completed at a research university.
NUFFIC, the Dutch organization for internationalization in education, provides information on the academic level of universities abroad in relation to the required level of academic master programmes in the Netherlands. The Admission Board uses this information provided by NUFFIC in order to assess whether your level of academic writing and methodological training is expected to be sufficient. If your level of academic writing and/or methodological training is deemed insufficient, you must complete a bridging programme which consists of courses in academic writing and/or methods and techniques. You may decide to take this course at any university. The Faculty of Social Sciences at VU Amsterdam offers courses in academic writing in the pre-master’s programme in Culture, Organization and Management (PM Tutorial Academic Writing COM and PM Fieldwork) and in methods and techniques (see below).
Conditional admission
You are admissible to the Culture, Organization and Management (COM) with other academic Bachelor's or Master's programmes after finishing a bridging programme of max. 30 EC.
Depending on the degree you are finishing, this bridging programme consists of academic courses in the field of (quantitative and/or qualitative) methods and techniques of social scientific research (minimum 12 EC) and/or academic courses in the field of organization science (minimum of 6 EC).
The Admissions Committee of the Master's programme in COM will determine which additional courses you will have to take. These courses can be taken at any Dutch university, but you can also choose to take them at FSS-VU.
At FSS-VU the following relevant courses are offered in the field of methods and techniques of social scientific research:
- Social Research Methodology (S_SRM): introduction to the process of social scientific research, including its key methods (qualitative and quantitative) and approaches (interpretative vs positivist).
- Ethnographic Research Methodology (S_ERM)
- Methoden en technieken van kwalitatief onderzoek (S_PMMTKOZ): to acquire knowledge and skills in the field of qualitative methodology.
- Pre-Master Fieldwork (S_PMF): to acquire qualitative research skills.
FSS-VU offers the following relevant subjects in the field of organisation science:
- Kernthema’s bestuurs- & organisatiewetenschap (S_KBO)
- Sociaal Kapitaal en Netwerken (S_SKN)
- Organizational Culture and Change (S_OCC)
*Please be aware that international students should not apply for the pre-master’s programme directly. In case you are not directly eligible for the Master’s programme, the Admissions Committee will refer you to the pre-master’s programme in Culture, Organization and Management or a certain selection of the courses.
Reading list
To prepare for the Master’s programme the Admissions Committee advices all students to read the following titles:
- Ailon, G. (2008). Mirror, mirror on the wall: Culture's consequences in a value test of its own design. Academy of Management Review, 33(4), 885-904.
- Calvey, D. (2021). Sensory ethnography: A creative turn. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 10(3): 346-357.
- Grey, C. (2008). A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying organizations. Sage.
It is to your advantage to read these titles before starting the Master’s programme, but it is not a binding condition and therefore will not be tested.
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English language requirements
If you are applying for one of our English-taught Master's degree programmes you will have to demonstrate sufficient English language proficiency by submitting English test results.
Although complete applications are preferred, you can begin your application before you have completed the test and then submit your passing score once you have been conditionally admitted.
You can find an overview of all accepted tests and scores that can be used to demonstrate your English language proficiency on the language requirement page.
