为什么申请商学院的PHD呢?

应该加两项：

做研究

不确定

I thought doing research and being a professor/scholar is the goal, earning decent salary as rewards is the plan, doing all these for a lifetime is the objective, but has anyone seriously thought about why we are willinging to forgo industry salary (much higher than most scholars') for the nail-biting research career?

I wouldn't say it in interviews but my reason is to have a personal core competency to be able to work in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong,Singapore, or the US and knowing that I can always financially support my wife and parents without the fear of getting fired.

How about you all? Care to share it with me and everybody? 

At Big Ten schools, most of which could be regarded as 2nd tier, the rate of awarding tenure would be less than 50%. This rate might be even lower for top tier schools, but obviously higher in somewhat less prestigious schools. So it is still highly possible to get fired. 

Anyhow, it all depends on your capability and where you are working.

Dandy,

I agree with you that personal capability is everything and the tenure rate is low among schools. I think I didn't make myself clear enough with regards to getting fired.

I thought scholarly career depends on how smart you are and how devoted you will be in the long run, and there is always lower-tier schools you can teach at--just lower compensation as well. However, working in the industry can be affected by the macro environment (if massive layoff happens when you are middle age, you are screwed) and it is more of a team work environment as opposed to individual (or a co-author or two), experience-accumulated career buildup, which translates to a safer situation when hitting middle age.

I guess it would be more appropriate to point out that job security probability in academia is relatively higher than in industry, then of course, we all know that classical risk profile higher rewards so long as you are willing to take more risks, yeah?