New Doctorate of Business Administration offers unique credential for senior executives

Rutgers Business School is launching a Doctorate of Business Administration Program, creating an impressive new credential for executives with ambitions of occupying corner offices and for more senior executives with hopes of reinventing themselves as tenure-track professors.

The unique 60-credit program will be offered primarily on weekends with some classes on weekday evenings. Courses will be available online as the program progresses. By offering the program on a full-time basis, Rutgers makes it possible for students to earn a doctorate degree in two years.

 “The Doctorate of Business Administration Program aims to equip graduates with tools, techniques and critical-thinking skills that can be used to solve the increasingly complex problems encountered now and in the future,” said Professor Suresh Govindaraj, the program director.

Unlike a traditional Ph.D., which focuses heavily on academic and theoretical research and prepares students almost exclusively for roles in academia, the Rutgers Doctorate of Business Administration is designed as a practitioner’s doctoral for professionals with extensive managerial or technical experience who are interested in learning and applying relevant theoretical concepts to business problems and economic issues.

In addition to offering advanced knowledge and critical thinking that extends beyond a master’s degree, the program will also emphasize communications and advanced research skills so students are able to communicate abstract research concepts.

After the successful completion of a year’s worth of coursework, students will be expected to focus on their dissertation. Program administrators expect individuals to begin their studies with a clear idea of a problem they want to solve or an issue they wish to address. Dissertation topics are not restricted to business challenges, but may extend to issues that impact on society at large.

Ideal candidates for the program include mid-career professionals who want to move into higher roles within their company, academics who would like to establish themselves as authorities in their field in order to work as consultants, and senior-level executives who want to parlay their experience into a second career as a professor or consultant. With a Doctorate of Business Administration, executives will have a credential to begin new careers teaching as college professors.

Candidates are also expected to have an MBA or equivalent master’s degree with substantial work and extensive decision-making experience in their field of study.

The program will offer the resources of the entire university while combining the strengths of various departments within Rutgers Business School, including accounting, finance, management science and information systems, marketing, management and global business, and supply chain management. Course material will cover contemporary topics such as machine learning and Big Data.

Professor Govindaraj, who earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University, also brings years of teaching and scholarly research experience to the Doctorate of Business Administration program. He has published research papers in leading accounting, finance and economic journals.

And for years, he has taught Financial Accounting and Financial Statement Analysis to working professionals studying in the Rutgers Executive MBA program where he is affectionately known as the grandmaster of forensic accounting.

He is currently director of the Rutgers Ph.D. program and has supervised a number of doctoral students with work on their theses.

Professor Govindaraj said graduates of the new Doctorate of Business Administration program will be recognized as experts in their chosen area. “They will have the credibility as an authority,” he said.

-Susan Todd