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Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) – another marketing ploy of business schools or a requirement of the times when intuitive business decisions are increasingly failing? Reflecting Dara Melnik and Barbara Igel from Skolkovo
If you want to change what you do, you must first change the way you think about your business. Hence, gaining momentum in business education a trend towards an analytical, reflective approach to management. Here are the training of leaders of the “experimental revolution”, and courses from the humanities and social disciplines for managers, and data analytics, and leadership courses in extreme conditions, forcing you to look at your practice from a new perspective. Part of that same dynamic is the scientific turn of business schools.
scientific twist is a bet on new scientific knowledge, theories and models applicable to business. It is also a fundamental departure from the traditional model of transferring practice from one manager to another in the “do as I do” mode. In the United States, the turn began back in the 1970s, in Europe a little later, and in our country it appeared quite recently.
Naturally, research and its inherent academicism cause rejection among students and in the business schools themselves. After all, they have always positioned themselves as places of practice and “knowledge at your fingertips.” At the same time, world experience shows that there is no turning back. Research brings results, and all professional schools have gone through a scientific turn: schools of medicine, law, journalism.
For top business schools, the answer in balance is not the abandonment of practice in favor of theory, but the dynamic interaction of the first and second. In other words, professional schools need science when they really need it, and not on its own. Not as a substitute for personal experience, but in dialogue with it. This also applies to preparation. Here on stage and the DBA comes out — Doctor of Business Administration.
The material was prepared for the special project “Guide to MBA”
What are DBA Programs
Unlike graduate or PhD programs, DBA programs do not train researchers. Their specialization — training of managers with research competence. These are CEOs who can read quarterly reports, HBR, and scientific journals with equal ease. They are able to think on several levels at once: their own practice, their organizations, the entire industry sector and global trends.
In reality, of course, DBAs are as different from each other as MBAs. Learning from some can turn your life around, while others turn out to be a waste of money. Most turn out to be PhD/PhD programs in a fancy wrapper. Practice is practice, but the idea of the DBA is correct and beautiful.
The target audience of a DBA is usually — top managers with significant experience and preferably an already formed view of their sector. Most often, the cohort principle is used in recruitment: students are selected not only on the basis of their qualifications, but also with an eye to the variety of professional trajectories and the overall composition of the study group.
Standard filling DBA programs:
- academic courses;
- networking;
- research track;
- reflection and design of personal practice.
Academic courses include high-level training in disciplines such as organizational theory, HR management, risk management, strategic economic analysis. Networking should take place both within the cohort and with other significant players in the sector.
Research track does not look like a PhD thesis. Instead, students perform “action research”, that is, solving a specific problem relevant to an organization or sector and studying the consequences of the actions taken in vivo. Moreover, often the authors undertake to receive feedback from practitioners and describe in the draft how the comments were taken into account.
DBA programs typically last 3 years and the most popular format is the hybrid one. Students come for a few days, discuss a specific topic, exchange ideas and results both with other students and with researchers and practitioners of their business school, get additional tools to solve various types of problems, strengthen old ties, form new ones and leave back.
Why You Might Need a DBA Degree
First of all, in order to solve systemic problems. Further, a well-constructed program allows you to create around yourself international networks of the same experts. The DBA degree is recognizable in the international arena. At the same time, it adds status and professional weight, without requiring you to change your lifestyle to an exploratory one.
Finally, DBA is often a request from people who already have a successful business, and now there is a desire to understand what actually worked and tell others. And the form can be counseling, teaching, or an author’s book.
If DBA programs are so good, why are so few people aware of them yet?
Now in the world about 300 DBA programs. For a long time, the United States was the leader in terms of the number of programs and students, but since the 1990s, programs began to rapidly spread to other countries. Now the United Kingdom and Australia are leading, while the main areas of growth are continental Europe and Asia.
DBA programs in our country there are in several universities, including the HSE, RANEPA and the Financial University. However, the degree is not common in the business community and is simply incomprehensible and unfamiliar to most. The situation is similar in many other countries. But the number of DBA students at the world level is still growing, but not in our country. Why is that?
This question has multiple answers.
First, the need for undergraduate business training, in particular the MBA, is generally called into question. Too many alternatives: short modular courses, business clubs, entrepreneurial communities, mentoring programs. If the MBA is not at the forefront of popularity, what can we say about the DBA, the next level?
Secondly, in our country, business and entrepreneurship are still subconsciously perceived more as areas where iron health, will and charisma are needed, rather than the ability to apply the results of recent research. And the transfer of experience does take place in personal conversations, most managers are sure. By this logic, it seems that one good mentor is better than three years of training.
Finally, during the post-Soviet period in our country there was a devaluation of the academic degree as such. Being a candidate or even a doctor of sciences is nowhere near as prestigious as it used to be in the USSR, or like being a PhD in most other countries. This does not equate to a high status in society, nor a high salary. There are no nice touches either. Unlike Doctor, which PhD holders can use, in ordinary life you will not be treated with respect as a “candidate”. “Doctor” (science) – perhaps, but for this you will have to work longer than in order to get a PhD, and a “title” will be meaningful only in certain circles.
Doctor Who?
We can say that this is for the best. To argue that the system of degrees should have long been replaced by a collection of competencies with a digital footprint. Besides you need to be proud not of a degree, but of a real influence on the world.
However, academic degrees are proof of expertise, just like a pilot’s certificate, for example. The pilot is responsible for the safety of people, and the doctor is responsible for connecting his statements with confirmed data and the latest theories. Degrees provide access to expert communities aimed at further high results.
Instead of trying to replace degrees with micro-certifications (in the form of certificates awarded for completing short courses and programs), we need to restore their legitimacy. But for this “doctor” should mean morethan a confirmation of the investment of time and effort in writing a long research text. It should indicate the presence of systemic positions and unique expertise in its field, not necessarily scientific.
WBA belongs to the category of professional doctoratesthat spread internationally in the 1990s. Examples of other programs of the same type: Doctor of Social Work (“Doctor of Social Work”), Doctor of Education (“Doctor of Education”), Doctor of Criminology (“Doctor of Criminology”). For the industry, professional doctorates create a layer of experts with a systemic understanding of the sector. They feel the dynamics, read the trends in time and can speak competently about problems and possible solutions.
This tradition does not exist in our country. Scientific degrees – candidate and doctor of sciences, and this is the way of scientists. The alternatives are far too exotic. It may be time to re-align degrees with real-world qualifications and broaden our understanding of top-level qualification options at the same time.