The Doctoral Program at the American Graduate School of Business aims to incrementally develop students’ higher order business skills and competencies along with an enhanced emphasis on conducting and interpreting research. This program is differentiated from AGSB’s Masters in International Business (MIBA) degree which emphasizes professional business management with a global scope. While both the DBA and the MIBA continue to inculcate in students managerial training and competencies, the DBA further includes a higher emphasis on theoretical formulation and on conducting and interpreting research. In keeping with the latter objective, doctoral business students are typically exposed to a wider variety of readings involving journal and research articles, as opposed to predominantly textbook based material. Further, the DBA students are expected to perform at an incrementally higher level in regards to the analysis and synthesis of a wide range of business material.
Our DBA students are business professionals looking to acquire additional qualifications as a researcher. Typically they have significant business work experience and managerial knowledge, have already acquired an MBA (or a Masters in a Business discipline), and now desire to complement their knowledge as a business practitioner by becoming a more knowledgeable scholar and researcher. Their aspiration is to broaden their profile of capabilities, rather than just incrementally deepen their existing knowledge base as a business practitioner. In particular, those desirous of a career in academe or in a predominantly research function with a government/educational agency/economic think tank/other research-based agency are predominantly disposed to getting a DBA degree.
Although both MIBA and DBA students are required to successfully complete and defend a thesis, the DBA theses tend to involve more in-depth research and analysis. Furthermore, DBA research can be more ‘niche’ oriented and can involve a reasoned critique of existing theories and paradigms, and/or the formulation of theories of relevance to the particular scope of the thesis problem. Our DBA students will be working with competent and skilled AGSB faculty members who will guide their dissertations.
