The DBA in British universities: assessment and standards

Samra-Fredericks

2015

AMPROC

We draw upon the concept of liminality to explore the experiences of practitioners enrolled on a UK Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) programme. We analyse twenty practitioners' reflective journals to detail how the DBA liminal space was negotiated. More specifically, we describe how practitioners deal with their struggles of identity incoherence or 'monsters of doubt' which are amplified in the DBA context owing to the complex nature of the separation phase of liminality. We identify three broad methods deployed in this endeavour: 'scaffolding'; 'putting the past to work' and 'bracketing'-which evidence practitioners 'desperately seeking fixedness'. We make three contributions -first, we provide empirical insights into the experiences of the increasingly significant, but still under researched, DBA student. Second, we develop our understandings of monsters of doubt through illustrating how these are negotiated for learning to progress. Finally, we contribute to wider discussions of 'becoming' to demonstrate the simultaneous and paradoxical importance of movement and fixedness in order to learn and become.

Section: The Dbamentioning

confidence: 99%

Desperately seeking fixedness: Practitioners’ accounts of ‘becoming doctoral researchers’

Samra-Fredericks

2015

AMPROC

“…Assessment usually occurs throughout the programme via specific documents with later documents assessed through a viva voce examination (Ruggeri-Stevens et al, 2001).…”

Section: Dba Programmesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring unknowingness in the DBA programme: Possibilities for developing an ‘attitude of wisdom’

2021

Management Learning

Unknowingness is an integral aspect of organisational life. Yet simultaneously this is often marginalised and silenced, leaving organisations and their managers unintentionally vulnerable. The cultivation of what Weick terms an ‘attitude of wisdom’ whose essence lies in knowing that one does not know, provides one way forward. However, challenges remain as to how this might be achieved. I suggest that management education provides one promising but so far overlooked space where managers can be helped to recognise and explore their unknowingness. In this paper, I focus on the experiences of DBA students who were embarking on journeys to become ‘researching professionals’. Drawing on an analysis of 30 students’ reflective journals, I offer two contributions. First, I identify the ways in which learning to research in this context helps students to recognise and engage with their unknowingness: through understanding the limits of what, how and when they know. I therefore outline one proposal for developing Weick’s ‘attitude of wisdom’ and in so doing, also advance a more nuanced understanding of this concept. Second, I illustrate how this learning informs managers’ everyday work by leveraging space for inquiry with others to present possibilities for more considered and inclusive action.

“…In addition, unlike traditional PhD programs, the cohort experience is often an integral feature of many UK DBA programs (Mellors-Bourne, Robinson & Metcalfe, 2016) with formal structures such as action learning sets used to facilitate social support. Assessment usually occurs throughout the program via a number of specific documents with later documents assessed through a viva voce (Ruggeri-Stevens, Bareham, & Bourner, 2001). The DBA program of focus here was developed in 1998 and now has over 150 graduates.…”

Section: The Dba: Program Description and Backroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bringing the Heart and Soul Back in: Collaborative Inquiry and the DBA

Samra-Fredericks

2019

AMLE

Waddock and Lozano (2013) propose that there is an urgent need to bring the 'heart and soul' back into management education. Indeed, its absence has also been implicated in the plethora of recent scandals and the global financial crisis. We suggest that, in part, such issues are attributable to a continued over reliance on a scientific and detached form of knowing which displaces particular 'human characteristics' and in so doing, downplays our inherent connections to others. In contrast, we identify the importance of embracing a supplementary form of knowing-collaborative inquiry which potentially restores our connections to others in ways which provide opportunities for a more heartfelt and soulful management practice. Specifically, we extend Van de Ven and Johnson's (2006) notion of collaborative inquiry to consider how it is mobilized in the context of a UK DBA program and in turn examine the impact this move accomplishes. Drawing upon a detailed analysis of twenty students' reflective journals, we illustrate the ways in which they develop a form of empathy. Crucially, we found that this was one important means for (re)-connecting to others and in ways which begin to bring in a sense of heart and soul back into management education.