The Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) program is a joint program between Drucker School of Management and EHL Hospitality Business School. The DBA is designed to empower accomplished senior executives to engage in meaningful discussions on global leadership, business, and societal challenges driven by cross-disciplinary thinking, original research, and strategic insights.

Degree Requirements

This lockstep program requires a minimum of 64 units – most students will transfer in up to 16 units from their master’s degree. Students will also complete a Capstone project. 

Required Courses

Theory & Methods (16 units)

• MGT 501 - The DBA Journey (2 units)  
• MGT 510A - Foundations of Research 1 (2 units)  
• MGT 510B - Foundations of Research 2 (2 units)  
• MGT 512 - Methods of Qualitative Research (2 units)  
• MGT 514 - Methods of Quantitative Research (2 units)  
• Advanced Research Methods (2 units)
• Data Collection Practicum (2 units)
• Data Analysis Practicum (2 units)

Research Project (10 units)

• Writing Practicum 1 (2 units)
• MGT 761 - Preproposal Defense (2 units)  
• Results Check-in (2 units)
• Writing Practicum 2 (2 units)
• Final Defense (2 units)

Scholarly Human Centricity (8 units)

• MGT 505 - Human Centricity Seminar (2 units)  
• MGT 570 - Organizational Behavior (2 units)  
• MGT 721 - Consumer Behavior (2 units)  
• Gifted Teaching (2 units)

Practical Human Centricity (10 units)

• MGT 500 - Drucker Philosophy (2 units)  
• MGT 503 - The Future Imagined (2 units)  
• Influence Leadership (2 units)
• MGT 502 - The Practice of Leadership (2 units)  
• Corporate Social Responsibility & Ethics (2 units)  

Transdisciplinary (4 units)

• Humanity and Heritage (2 units)
• The Art of Being Human (2 units)

Electives

Students will select an additional 16 units in consultation with their academic advisor.

Captstone

The program culminates with the completion of the three-year Doctoral Research Project. The program’s guided research journey is structured as follows:

• Year 1: Define your groundbreaking research topic and craft your research proposal
• Year 2: Conduct your empirical research
• Year 3: Develop your findings and discuss how they transform practice

The journey is designed to ensure success as outputs at each milestone build up to a complete thesis.

Approved research topics include:

• Consumer Behavior
• Organizational Behavior
• Leadership
• Sustainability
• Luxury
• Finance
• Strategy
• Technology and AI
• Real Estate