Global DBA in Sustainability

Overview

The SKEMA Global DBA in Sustainability is a professional doctoral degree with a sustainable business focus aimed at developing research capabilities to solve complex societal and organisational challenges through innovative and sustainable solutions that contribute to a tangible benefit. Our DBA puts special emphasis on developing and strengthening candidates’ capabilities to make a significant and meaningful impact on businesses and/or on society by providing answers to the most current sustainability challenges.  

Programme outline

Today, no significant business decision can be made without taking social, environmental, and sustainability demands into consideration. The ability to make business decisions compatible with sustainability needs is thus a core capability for a leader. The DBA at SKEMA Business School draws on a strong tradition of impactful and excellence in the competitive world of business research and education to foster this capability.

Graduates of the SKEMA Global DBA programme become competent applied researchers that can enhance business practices to create more sustainable organisations for a better future. They gain the ability to influences decisions-making processes not only through the knowledge developed from their research but also through the capability to disseminate this knowledge, the ability to convince relevance audiences, and their capacity to lead and impact necessary discourses.  

The  SKEMA Global DBA is aimed at the best talent in an organisation who aspire to become the senior executives of tomorrow and/or those talents aiming on thought leadership to impact public debates giving them doctoral research-based capabilities to address sustainability challenges. The distinguishing feature of our DBA is the strong focus on solving real-world business problems and identifying new opportunities for significant and lasting impact, especially in the evolving context of societal, economic, and environmental challenges.

For those talents who aspiring a career in academia, SKEMA Global DBA opens new avenues to contribute their practical and real-life experience enriched through doctoral-level research to the academic mission of all types of universities, business schools and academic institutions.  

Programme aims

The aim of the programme is to increase the talent quotient of its graduates by developing all necessary competencies to address global business challenges, making graduates more attractive and valuable to an existing or future employer. We further support our students to become through their meaningful contribution recognised thought leaders in public discourses. By providing dedicated trainings, our DBA opens doors for a complementary secondary career in higher education as adjunct or visiting professor.

The programme is designed to:

• Provide doctoral-level research skills for senior managers and executives.
• Develop capabilities to identify timely solutions to suitability or related challenges from applied research.
• Provide support to make a meaningful impact by addressing a wide variety of sustainability or related questions.
• Develop competencies and new knowledge to help graduates to transform existing business practices towards a sustainable future.
• Enhance the professional and scientific networks of our students.

The learning outcomes:

• Identify and frame difficult societal and business challenges.
• Develop capabilities to solve these challenges and disseminate solutions among different audiences.  
• Apply doctoral-level management research competencies to make a lasting impact.
• Design and execute rigorous research linked to business, social and environmental issues.
• Embrace change and transform organisations as usual to sustainable organisations for tomorrow.

Why choose this programme?

• A supervision experience which is supported by the best research faculty in a highly ranked global business school with campuses and research laboratories in all five countries and which is customised to the needs of each individual student in which the supervisor is at times your critic, your coach, and your mentor.
• The opportunity to learn in a global business and research environment and build an international network of researchers, executives, and leaders in the rapidly growing field of sustainability.
• Mentors from world-renowned institutions at the forefront of solving Grand Challenges of today.  
• A novel pedagogical approach that builds doctoral research competencies combining problem solving, innovation and benefit delivery resulting in a thesis, publishable papers, simulations, software or other research artifacts of value to an organisation.
• Rigorous focus on making a meaningful and lasting impact to tackle the suitability issues of today.

Programme content

The SKEMA Global DBA is normally completed in four years. Sometimes, students may complete the programme after three years or they may take an extra, fifth, year. The maximum duration allowed is seven years.  

Programme structure

The  SKEMA Global DBA is made up of seven elements (plus one non-credit-bearing course element) with a total of 180 ECTS credits entirely taught in English.

Non-credit bearing courses

To help those students who arrive with weaker preparation in statistics (e.g., data analysis) or academic writing, the programme offers non-credit-bearing courses (two full days each). Students may choose to take one or both of these courses, to better equip themselves for the rigorous DBA study.

Foundations of Data Analysis for Managers
Academic Writing in English

The non-credit-bearing courses will normally be offered before the start of first semester, or during semester breaks in first year of study.

The residential weeks

There are three international residential weeks based in Europe, North America and Asia - consisting of selected courses, a networking opportunity, mentoring support, meeting distinguished academic or professional guests and the opportunity to participate in a local cultural experience. Also, the programme will be providing a viable online solution for any student whose circumstances (e.g., Covid 19) prevent them from traveling to attend a residential week, designed to achieve similar learning outcomes.

The research methods courses

There are four research methods courses delivered using a hybrid mode of study, comprising an international residential weekend, home study, and online reinforcement with the professor. An online-only solution is available if unavoidable and agreed in advance with the supervisor.

The four courses are:

• Case study research
• Quantitative methods
• Qualitative and mixed methods
• Data analysis, interpretation, and theory building

Electives

The programme provides elective courses to strengthen participants’ knowledge on a particular subject relevant to their doctoral research. Participants can choose four credit courses from a variety of courses offered on campuses (e.g., France, US, China, Brazil). The programme also offers the opportunity take a specialised research workshop ( at the end of third year), for students to present their latest progresses in dissertation works – and receive feedback from advisors and peers.

The research proposal

The research proposal is a clear statement of the research aim and objectives, the rationale for conducting the research, which can be to solve an industry or societal problem or to fill a gap in current knowledge on an important business-related domain. The research proposal includes a condensed literature review and presents the detailed research approach to be used in the research project, the industry partnerships to be established, the type of data to be collected and the proposed methods of analysis and interpretation to be applied. The research proposal also highlights the expected contribution to industry from the research as well as any known risks and limitations.

Mentoring workshops

Mentoring workshops provide an opportunity for students to present their work and receive one-on-one feedback for developing their doctoral research competencies. They are held in addition to the regular supervision sessions for students. The mentoring workshops are usually scheduled as part of the three residential weeks during the whole study period and involve student presentations with feedback from an academic panel. In addition, students may be invited to attend the final research proposal and final thesis defences of other students who are about to complete their SKEMA DBA studies.

• Three residential study weeks (5 credits each)
• Four research methods courses (3 credits each)
• A written research proposal (15 credits)
• Research proposal defence (8 credits)
• Continuous scholastic development (10 credits)
• Final DBA written thesis (100 credits)

Final DBA thesis

The final thesis marks the culmination of the DBA student’s journey and is usually assessed by written thesis and oral defence. The final thesis may be structured as a traditional dissertation with distinct chapters based on a template provided or alternatively, as a collection of three publishable papers with a reflexive text to explain the learning journey at each stage and the intellectual contribution of each of the papers included in the final thesis. In this case a typical set of papers would be, a systematic literature review, a qualitative-based research paper, and a quantitative-based research paper.

The SKEMA Global DBA also recognises other forms of intellectual contribution and academic merit that make a significant contribution to scientific knowledge or the performance of an organisation. The precise DBA thesis structure is subject to discussion with the individual supervisor and depending on agreement of the academic board of the programme.  

Scholarly apprentice workshops

Scholarly apprentice workshops with expert trainers, top professors and successful SKEMA alumni - these are offered during residential weeks and at other times during the semester. They cover topics such as data analysis software training, academic writing, specialised methodological approaches, and how to publish your research.

Supervision

Supervision is tailored to the needs of the student to complete the DBA and seeks to ensure year-on-year development of management research competencies. High quality supervision is the backbone of the SKEMA Sustainability DBA. There is a normative schedule of supervision sessions averaging about one to two meetings per month.

Career paths

The programme provides interested students the opportunity to take one of three career paths:

• For those aspiring to shape and lead business sustainability efforts, the SKEMA Global DBA offers tailored electives focusing on business relevant aspects of sustainability and its implementation in business processes.
• A further career path focuses on leadership positions with social impact, such as top executives for Fortune 500 companies or global organisations.  
• The scholar or educational career path helps students develop their own teaching philosophies and identities, supports them in creating their teaching portfolios for a possible future career in higher education..