BOOK REVIEW
PERFECTING PROFESSIONALISM
A new book, co-authored by Michel Kalika and Stephen Platt , entitled The Doctor of Business Administration: Taking your professional practice to the next level , aims to explain how the DBA qualification can help managers handle increasingly complex and uncertain work scenarios and why a growing number of executives are deciding to pursue what is a unique doctoral programme
As business environments become ever-more challenging, where can frontline senior managers find solutions to help make increasingly difficult leadership decisions in the face of rampant volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity? The answer lies in their existing expertise and experience, but the opportunities to unlock and make sense of this invaluable know-how are few and far between in fast-moving environments that rarely offer the time and space needed to take a step back from one’s work and ‘unthink’. Growing numbers of senior leaders are, therefore, turning towards the DBA programme, and the opportunities it affords, to supplement their many years of business practice with the academic expertise of experienced professors, who are often leading management thinkers themselves in their own countries. This book has been written specifically for those who are already contemplating the journey to becoming ‘managers/researchers’; a journey during which they will gradually learn to master the research and critical thinking skills that will take their professional practice to the next level, helping them not only to become better managers, but also to stand out in a crowded career market where the MBA will no longer be seen as the only required qualification for senior responsibilities. The authors of this book, which features contributions from business schools including Henley, Cranfield and IEDC-Bled, represent AMBA-accredited DBA programmes run by leading higher education institutions in eight countries and on three continents. Kalika and Platt guide the future DBA candidate through the corridors of this so far little-known doctoral programme for professionals, exploring, in part one, the reasons for the DBA, how it answers a need in the executive education market, and clearly outlining the differences between a DBA and a PhD. This is followed in part two by an explanation of the kind of learning experience to be expected, opening up ‘the black box’ of the programme, clarifying key points such as participant profiles and motivations and programme design as well as the crucial partnership between student and thesis supervisor. Part three of the book concludes with the all-important question of the impact generated by professional theses – whether this might be for the personal benefit of the manager/researcher, for their organisation or for society at large.
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