Recommendations from the Doctoral Faculty Commission (DFC) Report

The Doctoral Faculty Commission came up with a series of recommendations that could help alleviate the shortage of business doctorates in the future. This web page provides more background information on the article, "Is There a Doctorate in the House?" - found in the Summer 2004 issue of the BGS International Exchange.

ATTRACT ALTERNATE SOURCES

Develop “post-doc” and bridge programs for Ph.D.’s in other disciplines –
Doctoral faculty can be attracted from sources other than doctoral programs in business. Almost half of the faculty at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business have doctoral degrees from fields outside of business.

Introduce or expand doctoral programs for executives –
Executive or professional doctoral programs typically attract employed mid- to senior-level executives with a penchant for business theory as a lens for critical thinking in the practice of business. Even small changes in this segment…could have an impact – 20 more graduates produced annually beginning in 2006 would add 150 doctorates by 2012.

Legitimize dual research and non-research tracks –
Outside the U.S., the use of faculty who do not have research duties is widespread. Schools that are built on executive education in Europe, for example, often employ professionally experienced faculty as scholars and teachers, but not as researchers who publish in academic journals.

Clarify definition of “professionally qualified” faculty –
More detail is needed in order to define and measure expertise and quality among professionally-oriented faculty. In the UK, the Institute of Learning and Teaching (ILT) in Higher Education has been established to ensure that teaching abilities are at a high standard. Membership in the ILT is fast becoming necessary for appointment as a teacher in business schools.

INCREASE PRODUCTION OF PH.D.’S

Initiate new funding sources for business doctoral programs –
Cost issues represent significant barriers to enlarging doctoral programs. The DFC suggests a focused and coordinated public-private partnership (the “Business Futures” Program) to assure continued research and education in business; the creation of a public-private funding program, to infuse a new generation of business Ph.D.’s into universities.

“We are currently beginning to engage some governmental agencies in a dialogue to make them aware of the issues and problems,” Doyle Williams, Dean of the Walton School at the University of Arkansas said. “The first step is awareness. They were not even aware of the issue. That’s what we’ve found so far. So it’s going to take an educational phase to get various constituents aware of the issue and what the significance of the issue is – the relevance of the issue to their mission.”

Secure agreement among top producers to increase program intake –
Doctoral production is concentrated among relatively few schools. Thirty percent of business schools accounted for 78 percent of the Ph.D.’s awarded between 1960 and 2000. An increase of two or three students annually by the largest programs could result in a net annual increase of approximately 100 to 150 doctoral graduates after five years. This self-initiated solution, encouraged by Business Futures funding, could create a substantial reduction in the projected shortages of doctoral faculty.

PROMOTE BUSINESS SCHOOL DOCTORAL EDUCATION TO PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS

Market doctoral programs and career attractiveness –
A survey of members of Beta Gamma Sigma demonstrated a gap between their perceptions and the reality of business faculty career opportunities. They significantly overestimated the financial burden of the doctoral studies, and underestimated the financial returns of an academic career in business. This points sharply to a need for industry-wide marketing efforts to increase the supply of prospective doctoral students.

Develop dedicated recruiting channels for doctoral students –
The MBA marketplace has developed vehicles for global recruiting of prospective students. Global MBA Forums are orchestrated by commercial vendors to drum up interest in MBA program attendance in various local markets. The Ph.D. Project is the only comparable industry-wide recruiting activity at the doctoral level, and it should be duplicated to elicit interest among other domestic and international candidates for doctoral programs.

DocNet is another group working to promote doctoral education in business throughout the world. DocNet is an organization of universities granting doctoral degrees in business administration and economics.

Attract high quality candidates with special funding –
Incremental financial incentives targeting the most attractive candidates should increase the number of high quality applicants into doctoral programs since surveys of potential Ph.D. applicants indicate that the cost of education is a deterrent to their candidacy.

Develop and maintain a doctoral program resource site –
A central worldwide clearinghouse should be developed that provides convenient access to information about doctoral education and career paths in business schools. It would be advantageous to make doctoral program information available worldwide, since so many doctoral students in business now do doctoral work in countries other than their own.

FOSTER INNOVATION IN DOCTORAL EDUCATION DELIVERY

Test use of consortia models –
Doctoral program delivery is unusually expensive because of the low student-faculty ratios. By pooling resources across institutions, schools can increase the number of students served while concurrently reducing the faculty resources devoted to the program. Although partnerships are common at the MBA level, consortia for doctoral education are rare and should be tested for their learning and cost effectiveness.

Use technology to reduce the cost of doctoral education –
Information technology can be: the enabler of consortia-based programs; the channel to access faculty or business expertise; a method for accessing and introducing program innovations that, without the technology, might remain inaccessible or prohibitively expensive; a means to shorten time-to-degree by providing students more efficient models of learning and research access.

Share information about best practices in doctoral education –
Innovations in program mission, content and delivery should be shared. Best practice sharing should include programs that “teach” teaching and program development.