DBA- Doctorate in Business Administration

The purpose of the Doctorate in Business Administration at European University is to educate managers, business leaders, executives, and scholar-practitioners who will:

•     Contribute to a deeper understanding of business and management processes in an increasingly complex world through applied research, teaching, and scholarship.
•     Improve their performance and the quality of their business decisions through reflective practice and lifelong learning.
•     Help companies and organizations solve critical problems and foster an environment of performance excellence.
•     Make a difference in the life of their organizations, professions, and the larger global community through service to social and professional organizations by conducting themselves in accordance with the highest ethical standards.

The program is built on an effective combination of courses, seminars, professional residencies, research papers, and a final dissertation. Working with faculty members who have extensive academic and practical experience, students gain a comprehensive understanding of critical foundation theories and the ability to immediately apply creative solutions to existing problems.

Breve descripción

El propósito del Doctorado en Administración de Empresas de la Universidad Europea es educar a los líderes de negocios, ejecutivos y profesionales para:

         Contribuir a una mejor comprensión de los procesos de negocio y gestión en un mundo cada vez más complejo a través de la investigación aplicada y la enseñanza.
         Mejorar su rendimiento y la calidad de sus decisiones de negocio a través de la práctica reflexiva y el aprendizaje permanente.
         Ayudar a las empresas y organizaciones a resolver problemas críticos y fomentar un ambiente de excelencia en el desempeño.
     

Who is the DBA for?

The DBA is designed for:

•     MBA or Master’s degree holders and practitioners with five or more years of post graduate work experience
•     Entrepreneurs and Senior Managers with alternative qualifications and successful careers
•     Academics wishing to progress their careers with a doctoral thesis.

Program Duration and Content

EU’s DBA is a research based degree, which looks at solving practical business problems or issues. It is applied research as opposed to fundamental research. The DBA can be done over a period of up to five years. Exceptional students may complete the DBA in as little as two years.

The doctoral program consists of two parts:

    The pre-dissertation stage
    The dissertation stage:

The pre-dissertation stage takes a minimum of two years and students can start at the beginning of any term (October, January and March). The objective of the pre-dissertation stage is to provide the students with the theoretical foundations and practices of the primary and supporting fields of study, and with a command of relevant qualitative and quantitative methods of research and analysis. The study plan is a description of how the students’ educational interests and objectives will be pursued during enrollment in the doctorate program.

Each course takes two days and is given in a seminar form (2 x 9 hours). The study plan is unique in that it places emphasis on the students’ educational activities in relation to longer-range personal and career goals. It tailors the doctoral activities to students’ interests as well as faculty requirements. Students are urged to be imaginative and innovative in their studies and not to confine planned activities to the classroom. Independent research, publication, consulting, travel and teaching are but a few of the different activities that, if properly developed and presented, may be approved by the Doctoral Studies Committee.

The students have to take the classes listed below:

Teaching methods may include videos, case studies, literature reviews, etc., all to be employed to establish a firm link between traditional management approaches and the most recent operational developments. At the end of each of the following seminars the students will be required to hand in a research paper (or other similar assignments required by the instructor) in order to assess their participation and to evaluate their academic progress.

    Management
    Finance
    Economics
    Marketing Strategy
    Advanced Accounting
    Human Resources Management
    Change Management
    Managing New Product Development
    Competitions and Markets

The Dissertation Stage:

The objective of the dissertation stage is for the students to apply the theoretical and practical knowledge and analytic methods to the resolution of research program. It is also designed to demonstrate that the students have synthesized the knowledge gained during the pre-dissertation stage and are able to apply this knowledge to the resolution of a substantial problem. The dissertation stage consists of the following:

    Two dissertation seminars
    Development and defense of proposal
    Research execution
    The final dissertation approval

The candidates are required to attend a final oral presentation and defense of the dissertation. The jury consists of external examiners, which are both experts in the field and senior academics.
 

Syllabus

Management

The primary goal of this course is to further develop the skills needed for an in-depth organizational situation analysis, before progressing into the exploration of more advanced issues/trends in organizational behaviour and business strategy. In particular, the course covers issues such as crisis management, managing at the edge of chaos, complex organization management, total quality management, and innovation.

Finance

In addition to a comprehensive overview of current trends and empirical findings in the fields of corporate finance, international finance, investments and valuation, students will develop a thorough understanding of the contemporary problems in financial theory. They should be able to choose between different methodologies and techniques in order to solve financial problems, implement them and define appropriate reporting systems to keep monitoring them.

Economics (special issues in)

The application of economics methods in the managerial decision-making process is a fundamental part of any business or management course. This seminar covers some of the most current aspects of economics and its influence on managerial activity. Some of the latest issues include: regulation of competitive business, governments spending and debt management, regulated and deregulated business, taxation in a globalized world, intellectual property management, etc.

Marketing Strategy

This course aims at providing postgraduate students and managers an advanced, state-of-the-art approach to strategic marketing planning. The ‘action-learning’ sessions will enhance the planning skills of participants through hands-on application of different marketing techniques to modern day business situations, starting with a proper identification of the task at hand, analyzing the macro and the micro environment in which the firm operates, gathering market and competitor intelligence, defining and targeting segments with high attractiveness, and designing an appropriate marketing plan to warrant adequate profitability for the firm. 

Advanced Accounting

This course intends to give a comprehensive overview of current trends and empirical findings in the fields of accounting and finance. Students will be exposed to some basic research methods and recent developments in accounting research. It covers both qualitative and quantitative research in order for the student to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the two approaches. At the end, they will develop a thorough understanding of some potential problems in accounting practice and to evaluate the principal arguments in the academic and public debate on the recent developments on accounting procedures.

Human Resources Management

This course is an expansive inquiry into issues relating to the ‘most important asset’ in the organization – human resources. In this course, students should not only improve their knowledge of the fundamental issues of HR Management, but also acquire and understanding of why the role of HRM is becoming increasingly fundamental to support the strategic planning effort of the firm. The seminar therefore requires full participation and opinion sharing among the participants.

Change Management

In this course, we will explore how relevant individual and societal forces (change agents) are integrated by successful business activities and how this can lead to success. The rapid pace of mutation in all human activities (political, social changes, economic and technological changes) has placed tremendous stress on all businesses for market survival. Through the historical development of technology and the consequent societal changes we will observe how these, and other phenomena, have affected business management.

Managing New Product Development

After a careful study of their market, marketing managers are in a position to develop a sound total marketing program designed to capture the desired share of the market. The tools to employ in this pursuit are primarily four and we start here with the first one: ‘product’. The students will be able to identify the need for multidisciplinary approaches, as needed by any marketing activity. The seminar will familiarize students with real-life events encountered by management in the last few years and bring their attention on the potential proliferation of similar issues worldwide.

Competitions and Markets

The students will be provided with an overview, and a selection of alternative and classical approaches to increasingly complex and ambivalent market situations. They will learn to develop solution models and concepts that organically integrate the imperatives of business survival on the one hand and what stakeholders need on the other.  They are also expected to become aware of how important a thorough research and analysis of the competition (and the other most relevant market forces) is in order to develop the appropriate responses.