Is There a Doctor in the B-School

Intersting article in Business Week for business PhD students.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_09/b3872103_mz056.htm

 

The b-schools bemoan the lack of Ph.D.'s to teach, but cut their programs to save costs, further exacerbating the problem. They're eating the seed corn.

One person refers to b-schools as an "industry." Couldn't agree more.

No mention is made of possibly recruiting graduates of accredited DL schools--people with both "real world" experience and academic credentials.

 

I don't understand.
I always keep hearing of this PhD glut, and how hard it is for a PhD professor to find a job. I guess it doesn't pertain to B-schools.

-s

 

I agree, the article talks about the short supply of PhDs in business while I know quite a few looking for faculty positions and unable to find one.

 

Here's what may be a controversial opinion: Is a shortage of Ph.D. faculty in B-schools really a bad thing? Or could it be a blessing in disguise?

It seems to me that business is a practice that one performs in the field as much as it's a subject that one studies from an academic department. Most business practitioners are MBAs or something similar, and some of the most successful executives (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs) don't have advanced business degrees at all.

In that respect business is analogous to studio art. Art schools have no qualms about employing productive artists with MFAs. They aren't particularly interested in hiring studio faculty who have written dissertations on art but who can't paint. (Art history is an obvious exception.)

So, might it make sense for a non-doctoral practitioner-oriented MBA school to hire the kind of qualifications associated with the practical skills that they claim to teach, rather than the kind of qualifications associated with academic theory? Emphasizing education at the expense of experience might end up pushing teaching and practice even further apart than they are now.

Yes, to anticipate the objection, I agree that the ideal would be to hire experienced executives with doctorates, people equally accomplished in steering an enterprise and writing scholarly papers about the theoretical aspects of what they are doing. But I'd guess that those business switch-hitters are rather unusual and in very high demand.

 

Hi. Interesting discussion... Add this thought to the discussion. I attended a keynote session at the AMA Winter Marketing Educators Conference in Scottsdale earlier this month. One of the senior committee leaders noted that applications to Ph.D. programs in business and marketing are very low, and he called for the formation of a task force to look into taking corrective action.

So, simultaneously, we have a "Ph.D. glut", a shortage of qualified Ph.D.s to fill vacant positions, a shortage of applicants to Ph.D. student slots in AACSB programs, and some DL Ph.D. programs apparently being filled to capacity. How can all these conditions exist at the same moment? Resolving some of these ostensibly conflicting notions might be an interesting research project.

Best wishes,

Dave

 

This is just a matter of return of investment. If your present salary is 70K with an MBA, it does not make sense to go for a PhD for 5 years and end up with a salary of 60K as an assistant professor.

On the other hand, if you are able to complete your PhD while working full time then you wouldn't have to give up your full time pay.

However, PhDs at regular institutions from AACSB accredited schools are very rigorous and demanding so part time is not normally allowed. The issue with DL PhDs is that academia cannot accept the fact that you are able to finish a PhD in three years while holding a full time job while most of the academics had to give up their full time jobs for 5 years to get where they are.

So how come a PhD from Capella or TUI can be completed in three years part time while one from a state university takes 5 years?. Reasons can be more structured programs or more effective systems.

If the acceptability of DL PhDs increases, this lack of business PhDs wouldn't be a problem since DL schools offer a more flexible solution than traditional ones.

 

First things first...

The "PHD Glut" refers to PhD's as a whole. Yes, there are way too many PhD's in history or literature but at the current time there are too few in business. Also, as far as rigorous programs go, it is possible to finish a PhD in 3-4 years even in a state school. However, many universities view grad students as low paid faculty so what is their motivation to help them through the process? The CHE is filled with horror stories of candidates that can't get their proposals approved, drafts read, etc. The process can be a traumatic one if the student has the wrong supervisor or committee. I am not saying a Capella PhD is just as good as a Harvard one. However, I am saying part of the quality or problems of the process is whom the student has to work with and not necessarily the school. Vice-Versa if you go to a lesser school but actively publish or present you have a greater chance of finding employment in academe.

 

Don't know about TUI, but as a Capella student I haven't heard of anyone completing the Phd in 3 years part time. 3 years FT+ is more the case, And those are the students who get 48credits from their masters transferred.
but not all students get so many credits in. I know I didn't.

-S

 

I do concur with Chris' comment that "many universities view grad students as low paid faculty." State university Ph.D. students may not officially work fulltime, but they certainly do (via teaching undergraduate courses or working as TA in graduate courses). The main distinction between these two groups of student is TUI and Capella students may have health insurances and retirements with their day jobs while state university students do not have them. Nevertheless, AACSB accreditation gives Ph. D. grads at state universities an advantage over their DL counterparts.

 

I think that part of the answer can be found in the admissions process to a traditional Ph.D. business program at a state university. To qualify for admission into such a program, several years worth of work experience is often necessary. After completing the MBA, most grads go to work for a major company and end up with pretty good salaries. After accumulating seniority, benefits, and creating a family, it is simply not possible to quit a job and physically go to school.

I've come to such a point in my life; the mere thought of quiting my job and leaving all of my social obligations behind to go to school for five years is comical. For me DL is the only way that I will be able to complete a Ph.D.

The Grenoble DBA is the closest program that I've seen so far that interests me. However, I have reservations about this program as well. Most people have no idea what a DBA is. This discussion forum is frequently asked whether a DBA is equivelant to this or that. I know this is really a moot point in the grand scheme of things but I really would like to have a degree title that is easily recognized. Also, just what on earth is the Grenoble Graduate School of Management anyway? It's clearly not a university; so what is it? A technical school is the only conclusion I can come up with. I dunno. The word on the street is that NSU is switching its doctoral business program from a DBA to a Ph.D and is looking into AACSB accreditation. That would surely be my ticket if NSU pursued these changes. Until the right program for me comes along, I'm content to wait.

Cy

 

DBA or PhD?

In the business world the DBA is very widely known. It wouldn't be a disadvantage to have a DBA by any means. Harvard awards one for that matter.

 

For practical purposes, an european DBA is equivalent to the american PhD. European PhDs are normally research only and the DBA is the closest thing to an american PhD since it includes course work.

The main thing is that academics normally argue that the PhD is more prestigious because involves original work while the DBA involves applied research.

 

But UNISA

South African degrees tend to follow the UK model i.e. PhD's are bsically dissertation-only. However the UNISA DBL is not the same as UK DBA's in that it is a dissertation! How confusing is that?

 

I just cannot understand why a United States based university doesn't offer an (AACSB) accredited distant PHD in Business. Every one of them require resedency and most of them require you to quit your job and work on the PHD full time. It's very frusterating, and I hate to have to go overseas to get this!

mbagraduate
AAS - Community College
BSIT - UOP
MBA - AIU
PHD - Enrolled at NCU

 

The same AACSB requirements make very difficult to offer a distance PhD. Faculty cannot supervise more than a certain number of students, full-time faculty requirements and so on. It is also not very profitable since you will require full time faculty, this is not a good incentive for for-profit schools like Capella or Walden that rely heavily on cheap part time faculty to make a buck.

Then you have also the time requirements, most AACSB PhDs require a minimum of four years full time so having the equivalent part time would be about 8 years. This could be a little too much for the average student. It has been discussed that the four years are because you have to work as cheap labour but most universities have the policy of not working more than 20 hours a week if you are registered as a full time PhD student and some won't allow you to work at least for the first year.

So I think it is more profitable to offer a non-AACSB credited program so the universities are not worry about this. How much the market would be willing to pay for an accredited AACSB program? Programs like Capella are already too expensive for the average person so I don't know if people would be able to pay a lot more for something like this.

 

I think this is the bottom line:
"
Participating and Supporting Faculty
In assessing sufficiency of faculty resources, an important distinction is made between
Participating and Supporting faculty members. This distinction categorizes faculty members
into those who are participants in the life of the school beyond direct teaching involvement,
and those who are not. While the specifics differentiating these categories vary from school to
school, the definitions can be made with enough clarity that it should not be difficult to place
any particular faculty member into the correct classification.

Guidelines for Sufficiency of Participating Faculty
Normally, Participating faculty members will deliver at least 75 percent of the school's annual
teaching (whether measured by credit hours, contact hours, or other metric appropriate to the
school). Normally, Participating faculty members will deliver at least 60 percent of the teaching
in each degree program AND in each academic discipline."


So according to this requirement. Full time faculty would need to teach at least 75% of the full teaching of the university. For profit universities pay about 1200-1700 dlls to part time faculty for course given on a contract basis with no benefits. A full time faculty normally makes at least 60K plus benefits and is normally required to teach about 4 to 7 courses a year depending of the University.


So you do the math and figue why for-profit universities are not very interested in giving ACCSB accredited PhDs.

 

Agree, but they don't appear to be the only ones not so enamoured with AACSB. Clearly there are plenty of traditional schools that are not seeking this accreditation. I guess my question to you is what is your opinion on schools that have full time faculty pursuing AACSB? Nova and many others still haven't.

-S

 

Sorry, what I meant is:


what is your opinion on schools that have full time faculty NOT pursuing AACSB?

-S

 

Some traditional schools also rely on part-time faculty and perhaps the percentage is not as high as the for-profit ones but getting to the 75% would require a big investment in terms of office space, salaries etc.

You also have some other requirements as teacher-student ratios that the for-profits could easily meet but not some of the state schools that I know.

In few words, the accreditation requires investment and this cannot be easily justified for small schools that don't have the required investment or rely on government budgets.


This is not an attack to for-profit schools.They fill a gap that otherwise wouldn't have been filled with traditional universities.

The only recommendation is that if the non-AACSB route is going to be followed, a student would maximize his chances of prospect employment if a specialty that normally does not require AACSCB accreditation is considered. In the case of accounting, a CPA is far more important than the accreditation and in the case of information systems, faculties are open to non_AACSB graduate because not all the faculties have the information systems major in the business faculties since some come from fields like computer science.