By: Kalle Lyytinen
As we are approaching the 25-year jubilee of our program, it is important to note how much we are still innovating and experimenting to keep the program the best in the world and to continue our intellectual leadership in the field. I will just note a few initiatives that we have just accomplished or will deliver during this and the coming year.
The long awaited and surprisingly slow process of changing the degree name from DM to DBA has advanced to the University level and we are waiting for information from the CWRU Board of Trustees that it has accepted the name change. We are also working on simple and fair rules for (E)DM alumni to apply for the new degree name. The proposed rules are currently being reviewed and accepted by the Committee on Graduate Studies and the University Registrar’s Office, and will be announced as soon as we have received a green light, hopefully by the end of the spring semester. The next review will be by the Ohio Higher Learning Commission and we hope they will decide on the name change by late May. The incoming cohort of 2023 will be the first one that will receive a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree.
We currently have two task forces, focused on revising the current DBA and PhD curricula, chaired by Youngjin Yoo for the DBA and Diana Bilimoria for the PhD program. It is clear that changes to the programs will be introduced. We seek to reduce the amount of travel demanded by the program while offering more options from which to choose. At the same time, we want to retain the valuable experience of studying and matriculating with a cohort. We are broadly exploring alternative ways of teaching methods and examining new pedagogical solutions of how to retain the intellectual rigor that characterizes our program.
For the PhD program, we plan to make it more flexible and integrate it more with the traditional management PhD program offered by the Weatherhead School of Management. The application process for the DBA and PhD is being reviewed. We expect these task forces to finish their work by summer. We are also examining innovations to start offering doctoral education experience in executive education space through a DM/DBA Certificate Committee chaired by Phil Cola. You will have an opportunity to learn more about these initiatives at the Town Hall Meeting at the 25th DM Reunion.
The program so far has not offered significant international experience other than having highly international cohorts and courses in the program which acquaint students with global economics and international political change. This is also about to change. In January 2020, the current PhD cohort were part of a workshop with several PhD students from the Department of Industrial Management and Engineering at Aalto University, Finland. The workshops included presentations with the students and a full day seminar on qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) with 25 PhD students across Finland. The group also visited a Finnish $100 million startup company (Relex Ltd.) started by 3 PhD students from Aalto about 8 years ago. The photo shows our PhD students with a company representative and me. The overall experience of having an international workshop as part of the program was highly positive. We would like to incorporate the international study residency in other select countries. Next year we plan to visit Finland again.
I look forward to meeting all of you at the coming 25-year celebration of the DM program, which will be a memorable and fabulous event. I want to thank the planning committee for their tireless work.
Let’s continue innovating!
