Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

The DBA is widely recognised as the pinnacle of qualifications in the world of business and management. The DBA is a professional doctorate which provides a structured programme of study through taught modules at Part I and a research thesis at Part II, closely integrated with an individual’s professional career development.

The essential characteristic of our DBA is that it is practitioner-driven and grounded in complex workplace problems, and doctoral students provide a theoretical understanding and interpretation - often from different and opposing perspectives - of why the problems have arisen and how they might best be addressed.

The DBA programme will encourage the development of a wide variety of lifelong learning competencies for students across both Part I and Part II of the programme.

Students will be encouraged to adopt critical thinking of the highest order during their studies, they will be expected to be able to critique and analyse exceptionally high quality academic work in the context of their own research and ultimately synthesise new knowledge and modes of practice.

Reflexivity is a necessary and continual part of the programme, particularly given its highly independent nature and the continual finessing of their research over the course of a number of years.

Students will also need to learn to be adaptable and resilient to be able to manage with what is a complex and challenging programme. The DBA requires a great deal of self-management of an exceptionally large piece of work, this will require excellent time management skills.