Doctorate in
Business Administration (DBA)

The DBA aims to provide candidates with advanced and comprehensive research and practical-based exposure and experience to leadership and management.

This is achieved by providing:

1. Interdisciplinary specialisation in the candidate’s area but with a focus on advance strategic leadership, management and governance.
2. Academic rigour and professional practice in the taught elements and facilitated research proposal development during the application process.
3. Flexible delivery methods consisting of face-face, online, and supervised research activity that commences from the first day of the course.
4. Personal and professional development for career growth for differentiation, advancement or change.

The studying journey of the DBA will typically transform candidates from interested learners to highly sought professionals through the incremental process of challenge and sophistication that is manifested through the assessed material. This incremental process provides a step-by-step learning experience. Lessons learnt will incrementally build into wider learning experiences, and performance will improve in a way that knowledge is underpinned by practice and research.

Discipline Specific modules

Advanced Strategic Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice

This module covers advance strategy formation, entrepreneurial manifestation of the strategy and the mitigation of risks by integrating conceptual, empirical and case methods in order to ensure that these perspectives are simultaneously considered. This is achieved using lectures, tutorials, interactive exercises, case studies and readings in a participatory and interactive manner. Your prior experience and your local business or employment setting will act as a basis for your further development and growth. The module assumes prior knowledge of these concepts based on previous experience.

The content of the module comprises of three key parts:

1. Advanced strategy theory and practice and its manifestation through appropriate leadership practice.
2. Entrepreneurship based on paradigms and their associated practice.
3. Risk identification, mitigation and management as an on going and progressing activity.

The global entrepreneurship theme critically examines the global nature of entrepreneurial activity to, for example, create or manage profit, social or high-tech ventures and firms based on economic, societal and regulatory international environment.

Executive Leadership: Critical Reflection & Perspectives

This module will take you through a leadership journey that challenges current practice to review personal and organisational leadership performance. The starting point of this module is that all leaders, including the exceptional ones, benefit from self-awareness and emotional intelligence so they can lead in a more effective and inspiring manner. This module explores this topic in the context of specific business environments and the contributing variables of ambiguity and uncertainty. This module starts with advanced underlying principles but progresses into a self or organisational reflective approach based on empirical data and current trends for local, national and global leadership approaches.

The approach is highly interactive with emphasis upon the current business environment and the consultation of research articles that reflect empirical findings, case studies and emerging ideas. The module places an emphasis upon “executing leadership” informed by the theoretical and practical underpinnings. Case studies and simulated contexts will enable you to debate, compare, and negotiate the leadership practice adopted as well as the alternative leadership options.

This module reflects upon leadership as on-going process of experience-based learning and refining using principles such as transparent information flow, fail-safe, access to consultation, and seamless execution that once is practiced at an individual level, can be replicated across the organisation.