Emerging Options in Doctoral Study in Management for International Executives

Abstract

University business schools are facing intense criticism that their traditional MBA and other graduate management curriculum fail to teach change management skills, employee development skills, employee recruiting skills, team-building skills, and the importance of ethical behaviour. Due to increasing technology, competition, and workforce diversity, today's leadership decisions are more complex than they were five years ago. The need for today's middle managers, senior managers, vice presidents, COOs, and CEOs to have more advanced leadership education has become critical, but the traditional Ph.D. and even the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) have not become a recognized and acceptable viable solution. In contrast to the traditional Ph.D. and DBA which is geared towards the engagement of theory and research, the advanced leadership knowledge involved in the Doctor of Management (DM) encompasses advanced leadership training that is practical and focused on leadership's complex impact on improving organizational culture and human resources development. While MBA programmes or the traditional business Ph.D. programmes are focused on finance, accounting, marketing, operations strategy, and quantitative research, DM goes a step further by also considering the importance of developing employees, organizational culture, and teams as a major aspect of strategy execution success. DM looks at management almost in an interdisciplinary way by blending leadership courses that touch on psychology, human resources management, communications, human relations, employee development, organizational behaviour, and traditional management science. While traditional business Ph.D. and DBA programmes focus on skill development in order to effectively manage organizational operations and organizational process, DM focuses on people because without a properly developed and appropriately constituted staff, success will only be limited. For many years, it was assumed that a doctorate degree was not applicable in the international business world. DM is a major departure of tradition by enabling executives to use a combination of pure leadership theory and applied research methods to define, implement, and evaluate the strategies necessary for organizational growth and survival in a 3-4 year programme without having to leave their full-time jobs. DM addresses the question: If the definition of management is getting work done through people, then why are traditional Ph.D. programmes so heavily focused on business and so little on employees and organizational development?