Course overview
Top reasons to study Business with us
Discover why Teesside University London is the ideal place to launch your career in business and find out how we equip our students to become future business leaders.
Today’s global business environment is disruptive and dynamic, posing various organisational leadership challenges. Our DBA programme gives you the knowledge and skills you need as a business leader.
Engage deeply with your organisations, critically reviewing and researching workplace-based attitudes and practices, and applying your learning to improve outcomes and solve problems responsibly and sustainably. Gain a comprehensive, research-intensive and high-level education, enhancing your managerial practice.
You co-create and interpret new, actionable knowledge through original research at the forefront of an area of practice or academic discipline, combining advanced study with professional experience.
All DBA lecturers are research-active and able to supervise academic and practical research topics, with a range of expertise including human resource management, organisation behaviour, innovation and marketing.
Course details
Course structure
Core modules
This research-based module guides you through conducting real-world research under the supervision of two experts, generating academically and practically impactful knowledge. You complete a doctoral-level thesis of approximately 40-50,000 words and participate in a viva voce to defend your work. Both are required for the Doctor of Business Administration award, along with submitting satisfactory ethical clearance.
Critical Issues in Policy, Organisation and Management Research
Examine interdisciplinary approaches to research in policy, organisation and management, using theories and methods from fields like political science, economics, sociology and public administration. Build skills to critically evaluate policy and organisational challenges through analysis of diverse literature and research methods. Learn to synthesise existing knowledge, assess data and develop frameworks to produce literature reviews that support evidence-based policymaking, enhance governance and deepen scholarly insights.
Interdisciplinary Research Design for Doctoral Students
The module incorporates diverse traditions within social sciences, introducing a range of research philosophies and methods. You gain the foundational understanding you need to critically engage with literature and make informed methodological choices in your research, including considerations of data analysis and ethics.
Modules offered may vary.
How you learn
This course focuses on preparing you for success in the global workplace, by making you research-active, future-ready, globally-connected, socially and ethically engaged, and digitally empowered.
It is underpinned by a focus on industry, employers and practice. Project-based learning is core, drawing directly on industry projects, real-world scenarios, employment/enterprise experiences, and global initiatives.
You are assigned at least two module supervisors who you meet with regularly for support, guidance and progress monitoring.
Study up to three modules at a time over a 12-week period, two days a week.
How you are assessed
Assessments draw directly on industry projects and real-world scenarios where appropriate and reflect professional body requirements. They are inclusive and have been developed to consider the needs of students with protected characteristics.
Throughout the course, you are regularly informally assessed and provided with feedback, allowing you to identify areas for improvement. You are assigned a supervisor to offer guidance for developing practical work. You also attend the annual doctoral colloquium, where you present your work and get feedback from fellow scholars and other academic experts.
You also participate in a mock verbal exam, known as a viva voce, to develop confidence in defending your work.
Each module has specific formal assessment criteria and offers an opportunity for feedback:
- The first module is a critical literature review of 7,000 words.
- The second module is a research proposal of 7,000 words.
- The third and final module is the doctoral-level research thesis, assessed through the DBA defence viva process. Following the viva, you are given detailed feedback and recommendations for changes in your final thesis. The examiners later review these changes, and following implementation, you are recommended for the award.
Entry requirements
You must have a master's degree in a subject relating to business and/or management, as well as over 3 years' management experience and an appropriate position in the workplace.
If your first language is not English, you need to satisfy the English language requirements which are a minimum overall score of 6.5 IELTS and 5.5 in each area.
Research proposal: to be considered, all applicants are required to submit a clear and comprehensive research proposal template, clearly articulating:
1. A working title: this doesn’t need to be the final title of your project, but it must show you have thought about what you hope to achieve.
2. A general overview: a brief section about the subject area you are looking at and how it fits into which discipline(s).
3. Expected results, importance and originality: what kind of results do you hope to achieve? What contribution are you looking to make in your chosen subject area?
4. Personal interest and motivation: your motivation for the topic can stem from various sources, such as the professional benefits you might gain, a desire to learn more about the subject, or an aspiration to implement changes based on your research in the future.
5. Research aims, objectives and key questions: these are crucial to outline. What specific questions are you looking to answer? What do you hope to discover? If you are conducting original research, explain your hypothesis. Be cautious not to set an unrealistic number of goals or be overly ambitious. While ambition is valuable, it is essential to ensure you can realistically achieve the objectives you have described.
6. A review of the relevant literature: this is not an extensive literature review, but you must demonstrate an understanding of the critical issues, themes and debates within the relevant literature. You should reference key texts and briefly explain their significance to your research area. In this context, you summarise prior research on your topic. A DBA involves original research focused on real-world problems, so you must show that your study addresses a gap in existing research.
7. Methodology: how do you plan to conduct this research? What methods will you use? Are you pursuing qualitative data, quantitative data or both? Will you conduct lab experiments or use questionnaires? What options are available and what methods could you consider? Why have you chosen these methods? Where are you likely to access your data?
8. Bibliography: provide a short reference list of the literature you have reviewed. We recommend using the research proposal guidelines and to allow one month to create your research proposal (before application). It's best to download the template now – your proposal must be submitted using this template or it will not be accepted.
All prospective students will be interviewed. Applicants must show they have recent and relevant study or practice in the field of business and/or management.
The interview will normally explore
- reason for your application
- work experience
- previous postgraduate qualifications
- research experience
- research areas of interest
- all aspects of the research proposal
- anything else deemed appropriate by the tutor connected to the proposed research.
International applicants
International applicants can find out what qualifications they need by visiting Your Country
What you need
To access the on-campus facilities you need a HTML5-capable web browser on a computer such as a Windows, Mac, Chromebook, or Linux computer. HTML5-capable web browsers that can be used include the following:
- Google Chrome
- Mozilla Firefox
- Safari
- Microsoft Edge
For some sessions you can also access sessions on the following browsers and devices:
- Chrome or Safari on an iPad (iOS 11 or later)
- Android (Android 8 or later)
- Microsoft Surface Pro (Windows 10) tablet
Don't have your own device yet?
Don't worry - we have a bank of devices available for you to loan whenever you are on campus.
You can also access Adobe Creative Cloud - a suite of 20+ world-class, industry-standard creative apps including Photoshop and InDesign.
Employability
Career opportunities
Typically, graduates move into senior management and strategic leadership roles, internal consultant/project leadership roles or external consultancy roles. Applicants are expected to be relatively senior business-based professionals at the point of entry, so while the course allows you to build on existing experience and skills, it develops you further as a research-informed leader.
Information for international applicants
Qualifications
International applicants - find out what qualifications you need by selecting your country below.
Select your country:
Useful information
Visit our international pages for useful information for non-UK students and applicants.