Doctor of Business Administration

Program Description/Overview

The program is designed to provide a multidisciplinary and global perspective for managers and leaders to improve their practical and theoretical capabilities to create new knowledge and apply it to create innovation and solve problems in organizations in the 21st century. 

The program encourages an interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approach integrating ideas from Business, Management, the Humanities and the Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences. The program prepares students for advanced positions in management or consulting as well as academic positions in teaching, research or administration in Higher Education institutions. Students will learn in classes with their professors and they will also engage in extensive self-learning and collaborative learning opportunities such as the research labs.

This program has a strong focus on diversity and on international competencies, with professors and students having diverse backgrounds and coming from different countries. Cohorts in the program include accomplished professionals who are working in successful positions and some have successful international backgrounds. This creates a network of professionals that enhances life-long career opportunities of the graduates. Students attend conferences, engage in projects of a consulting nature, and publish, either writing books or conference papers or research articles which further enhances their professional stature.

It is expected that this program will take a minimum of three (3) years full-time study, however, a more practical time frame is four (4) years if students are not able to take classes full time when offered.

Emphasis/Concentration/Tracks

Information and Data Science

This specialization is geared towards students with a focused interest in understanding and contributing to knowledge creation within the broad and contemporary field of data revolution. Data science can be researched from a quantitative, programming and applied perspectives. The specialization emphasizes research in the data and information science areas from the applied perspective of impacting organizational, management and competitive perspectives. The program will also provide experience in important, business related data-science problems in diverse fields including ethical and societal considerations surrounding data science and its applications.

Management

This specialization prepares students with broad based foundational skills for academic research, consulting and corporate positions in organizations. The specialization is geared towards students with an interest in understanding and contributing to knowledge creation within the fields of strategy, leadership, human resource management, international strategy, growth and competitiveness, organizational development and theories. Students learn emerging theories and research issues to develop solutions to complex management problems.

Marketing

This specialization is geared towards students with a broad range of interests including but not limited to the organizational strategy of firms, managing and growing organizations, and behavior of employees, teams and groups, strategies for political and social influence and organizational learning and adaptation. Doctoral candidates in this specialization will be able to create new knowledge for application in the real-world to the evolving needs of complex global organizations and their management. They learn and research theory and application, leading them to impact management practices across the globe.

Fast Track Program from a Master Program to a Doctoral Program

If students enroll in the master program at Alliant International University, they will be able to take up to 9 units of bridge courses in the DBA program as part of their master program upon approval. They can transfer these bridge courses with a B or above grade into their doctoral program.

The following Fast Tracks are available for DBA:

1. From MBA to DBA
2. From MS Data Analytics to DBA in Information and Data Science

Program Learning Outcomes/Goals

1. Develop research-based solutions in complex environments using discipline-specific theory in an area of specialization.
2. Conduct scholarly literature review relevant to business decision-making in an area of specialization.
3. Demonstrate understanding of multicultural and international issues influencing success of solutions in organizations.
4. Analyze and research contemporary business problems using appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods, tools, or techniques.
5. Contribute knowledge by utilizing data and interdisciplinary understanding for identifying business problems and developing solutions that may lead to highly functioning and sustainable organizations.
6. Demonstrate ethical and professional skills for leadership roles in academia, consulting or business organizations.
7. Demonstrate competence in interpersonal communication in virtual, cross-functional and/or interdisciplinary teams.

Training Model

This is an applied doctoral degree and graduates work in academia, corporations, not-for-profits, consulting agencies upon graduation. Accordingly, the program ensures comprehensive coverage of the body of knowledge and skills needed for graduates to perform successfully in academia as well as corporations and other organizations. The curriculum is a focused, rigorous program with a business and management emphasis as well as a research orientation.

Students must demonstrate an ability to work independently with initiative and diligence to design and implement an empirically grounded and theoretically significant contribution to their field. This is accomplished under the mentorship and supervision of a Doctoral Chair and Committee.

Programmatic Accreditation

The program is accredited by Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), which is a globally recognized accreditation body for business and management area programs.

Internship, Practicum, and/or Dissertation Information

In addition to the classroom instruction, students get real-world experience in real client contexts. This is designed to provide students with in-depth supervised practical learning experiences. These experiences are designed to expose students to learning experiences within the program that require them to apply theory and models to real academic, organizational or non-profit settings. This is achieved through a variety of learning experiences designed to develop professional practice related skills in student’s areas of study or specialization. DBA ground students may engage in internship experiences. DBA online students will engage in projects with real secondary data and information. In cases where a student in the ground program is unable to secure an internship site, another option such as an applied project will be made available to ensure they meet the course requirements supervised by the instructor.

The internship required may be prior to one academic year in the program. As a result, international students completing the internship series prior to one (1) academic year should contact the International Students Office for details and specialized requirements.

Credit Units

Total Credit Units: 60

Total Core Credit Units: 45

Total Elective Credit Units: N/A

Total Concentration Credit Units: 15

Degree Requirements

Students must pass a qualifying exam (projects) to ensure qualified doctoral candidacy.

Emphasis/Concentration/Track Requirements

Curriculum Plan

The following curriculum plan is a sample and serves only as a general guide. Curriculum plans and course sequence are subject to variation depending on a student’s start term. Students must complete all coursework required for their program as set forth in their individual master plan of study.