Ph.D. Overview

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Overview of the Ph.D. in Business Administration

Oklahoma State University is a comprehensive university with instructional, research, and outreach missions. OSU is composed of four campuses and extensive off-campus instructional and assistance programs. The combined enrollment for these locations exceeds 30,000 students. The Stillwater campus has an enrollment of more than 23,,000 students and a full-time faculty of over 900. International students are an important part of the OSU student body; 5 percent of undergraduate enrollment and 29 percent of graduate enrollment comes from more than 115 foreign countries.

The William S. Spears School of Business (SSB) is one of eight resident education colleges on the Stillwater campus. With 4,000 undergraduate students and 700+ graduate students, the Spears School of Business maintains a strong academic presence on campus. The School has demonstrated broad-based excellence through its undergraduate, graduate, research, and executive programs. Its research and educational programs are conducted by more than 100 full-time faculty, many of whom have received outstanding teaching awards and been recognized for innovative instruction. The faculty are nationally and internationally recognized for their publications and leadership positions in professional academic associations. Visit SSB Overview.

The Ph.D. Program in Business Administration offers advanced graduate education for students contemplating careers in university teaching and research and professional positions in business, government and other organizations. This degree reflects scholarship at the highest level. The scope of business administration is of such breadth that most individuals specialize within a limited area of business knowledge to assure in-depth understanding and advancement of the state of knowledge in that area. In the Spears School of Business, Ph.D. degrees are offered with emphasis in the following fields:

• Accounting
• Finance
• Management
• Management Science and Information Systems (Specializations: Management Science, Information Systems, Operations Management, Telecommunications Management)
• Marketing

In addition, a Ph.D. in Economics is offered directly through the Economics department. For more information, contact the Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business, Oklahoma State University, 74078-4011 USA. Phone: (405) 744-5195.

The OSU Ph.D. in Business Administration program is enhanced by these conditions:

• Students can choose from a variety of professional fields to develop a high degree of competency and specialized knowledge. Almost 90 graduate courses are offered by the School, providing a broad spectrum of course offerings for designing individualized programs of study.
• The research productivity and wide diversity of backgrounds among the faculty provides a strong foundation for a stable Ph.D. program.
• Excellent research facilities are available on campus and in the SSB Building. These facilities include a major computational center, microcomputer labs, and the University library.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

WORK AND LIFESTYLE: The work and lifestyle of a typical faculty member in a university differ substantially from the image held by many undergraduate students or by practicing managers. A university professor's central purpose is the creation and diffusion of knowledge. Faculty have the opportunity to apply their expertise and to disseminate knowledge in a variety of scholarly and applied areas in both campus and off-campus settings. They balance research, teaching, service, and consulting activities in a manner best suited to their specific talents.

The demand for management education still exceeds the new supply of individuals earning doctoral degrees from business schools. Starting salaries are quite attractive. This is especially the case when the nine-month base salary is combined with additional compensation for summer research and teaching activities, consulting assignments, executive program teaching, textbook writing, and sponsored papers and speeches.

DIVERSITY IN EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUNDS: Business school doctoral students come from business programs as well as seemingly unrelated academic fields such as economics, psychology, sociology, mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, geo-graphy, or political science. This diversity is also evident in the backgrounds of OSU's graduate faculty, with more than 70 percent of the faculty having nonbusiness undergraduate degrees and a significant number having nonbusiness graduate degrees.

The frequency of students with prior nonbusiness degrees in graduate business programs is understood more easily when one considers the variety and complexity of issues typically addressed in business school teaching and research. These topics range from the vastly complex international monetary system to the pricing of a computer chip; from the theoretical analysis of financial portfolios to the art of managing an opera company; from the psychological aspects of consumer demand to the subtle skills of effectively coordinating interpersonal relationships in a complex organization. Taken together, these and other issues constitute an extensive body of knowledge that requires skills and knowledge drawn from many fields.

THE GOALS OF A DOCTORAL PROGRAM

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES: The primary purpose of the OSU doctoral program is to prepare the candidate to conduct research in business and teach. There are three dimensions of this preparation.

• KNOWLEDGE - The candidate is provided the opportunity to develop:
  • a broad understanding of the theory, nature, and activities of business firms;
  • awareness of the impact of environmental forces - social, political, legal, governmental, and economic - on the firm's operation;
  • a comprehensive knowledge of a selected area of professional concentration within business administration.
• RESEARCH COMPETENCY - The candidate is provided the opportunity to develop o an orientation toward the development and usage of theory in business decision making; scholarly competency in conducting both basic and applied research.
• TEACHING - The candidate is provided the opportunity to develop o teaching skills in his or her area of specialty.

In addition, Ph.D. candidates are encouraged to develop enduring habits and attitudes for continuing independent, professional, and scholarly growth.

PROGRAM TAILORED TO NEEDS: The Ph.D. program is flexible and individualized in the manner by which it accomplishes these goals. A candidate's specific studies for the Ph.D. are determined after an analysis of his or her past educational experiences and plans for the future. Candidates develop competencies in a variety of ways, including joint research with faculty and student peers, specific course work in the program, and independent study. Perhaps the doctoral candidate's more significant learning occurs outside the classroom. By cooperating with faculty members and others in discussions, experiments, simulations, and field studies, candidates actively engage in research and teaching.

DESIGN OF PROGRAM

COMMON REQUIREMENTS: A breadth of understanding of business theory and practice is generally expected from all Ph.D. students. The breadth is typically provided by an MBA degree. However, the breadth requirement is individually tailored to meet each student's specific needs, and selected courses can be incorporated into one's Ph.D. program rather than requiring an MBA. To achieve breadth, Ph.D. candidates exhibit competency in the following areas as ordinarily attained by completion of courses carrying graduate credit: accounting, finance, quantitative methods, marketing, management, and economic theory. Additionally, each candidate is required to achieve a level of competency in the application of quantitative analysis and behavioral science appropriate to doctoral work in his or her primary field in business administration.

FIELD REQUIREMENTS: Each candidate is required to advance beyond the common requirements in a specialized field of business administration. The primary field is that sphere of scholarship that commands the greatest portion of a program of study, and dissertation research and major professors are selected in that particular area. Primary fields can be selected from the following:

• Accounting
• Finance
• Management
• Management Science, Information Systems, Operations Management, and Telecommunications Management
• Major Field in Marketing

Detailed descriptions of each of these fields are provided in the following sections of this brochure and should be examined in detail. Applicants to the program must select a primary field of specialization to complete the admissions process since faculty committees in each of the fields make the admission decisions. All potential applicants are encouraged to speak directly to faculty about the nature and expectations of the program.

SUPPORTING FIELD REQUIREMENTS: Supporting field requirements will be determined by and tailored to the requirements of the primary field department. Supporting fields of study are selected from business administration and/or from related areas. These spheres of scholarship complement the candidate's primary field and provide theory and research skills to enhance academic excellence in the primary field.

THE DISSERTATION: A major requirement of the Ph.D. program in Business Administration is the doctoral dissertation. Each candidate conceptualizes, designs, and executes a significant research project as his or her dissertation and presents the findings in an acceptable written form.

The dissertation and an oral presentation and defense should demonstrate that the candidate has developed a high level of research competency, an understanding of his or her field of study, and advanced knowledge within the field.

PROGRASS IN THE PROGRAM: A faculty committee recommends courses to be taken by the candidate and periodically monitors the student's academic growth. Both written and oral comprehensive examinations are administered after completion of the prescribed course work that cover the subject areas of the student's work, i.e., the primary and supporting field(s). The dissertation must meet the professional standards of each student's dissertation committee.

ADMISSIONS: Individuals with either a baccalaureate or master's degree may apply. The applicant does not need to have a degree in business in order to apply. Acceptance into the program will be based on evidence of high scholarly potential in teaching and research and a strong personal goal of intellectual development. Applicants are evaluated on undergraduate and graduate grade point averages, letters of recommendation, scores on the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) or Graduate Records Examination (GRE), and other indicators of teaching and research potential. The total candidate is evaluated such that no one criteria insures acceptance or rejection from the program.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE: Financial aid is available from sources within the Spears School of Business, the Graduate School, and other programs administered through the University. Applicants should realize that graduate degree programs at OSU require students to devote a considerable amount of time to study and research each week. Because of the heavy time demands of each academic program, students are discouraged from seeking employment unrelated to their studies.

The following is a list of financial aid alternatives:

• Fellowships are available through the candidate's department. Scholarly excellence is always a major consideration and usually the most important criterion in selecting fellowship recipients. Need is also frequently a consideration.
• Graduate College Fellowships are available for a limited number of students, each paying a stipend and providing a grant-in-aid to cover resident education tuition charges.
• Graduate Research/Teaching Assistantships are available for a number of candidates. All assistantships are half-time instruction and provide a $12,000 nine-month stipend plus an out-of-state fee waiver. Half-time assistants are expected to work up to twenty hours per week. Assistantships provide solid opportunities for students to gain experience in their fields of interest in addition to providing financial assistance.
• Fee Waivers of out-of-state tuition are given for Graduate Teaching Assistants and of in-state tuition for selected Oklahoma residents.

UNIVERSITY FACILITIES

A modern Spears School of Business building provides highly functional classrooms, offices, counseling rooms, and student work areas. Located in the building are three computer labs. Two of these labs contain more than 75 IBM PCs available for student use, and the other contains more than 30 terminals that provide access to the University mainframe computer systems.

The Office of Research and Financial Services facilitates research of the faculty in the School, coordinates sponsored research funded by grants and contracts, encourages multidisciplinary research, manages policy research and economic development initiatives and maintains an econometric forecasting model of the state economy. This office also cooperates in the provision of significant research support services to faculty and graduate students. These services include assistance in locating sources of financial support for research; support for acquiring access to computer facilities, software, and databases essential for research; and traditional word processing and graphical presentations support. Finally, the office is actively engaged in the reporting of research activities of the College through dissemination of an Annual Research Report of the University and facilitating submissions to scholarly journals for publication.

OSU provides student access to computers through six student computer labs. The Spears School of Business lab, located in the Business building, contains 76 Pentium multimedia equipped computer workstations. All student computer lab workstations are attached to the OSU network and provide standard software including Word, WordPerfect, Lotus, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Netscape Navigator. Additional software available in the Spears School of Business lab includes GAUSS, Lisrel, SPSS, PC SAS, Visual Basic. Current databases of special interest in business research include CRSP and Compustat. Every student is provided an e-mail account upon registration with OSU. E-mail access and mainframe access are also provided through all University computer labs, including the Spears School of Business lab.

OSU Library contains nearly more than two-million volumes and more than 24,000 journals that support the diverse academic and research programs of the University. The documents collection is one of the best in the southwest, and the library is a designated depository for U.S. Government as well as State of Oklahoma publications.

CAMPUS LIVING

Visit Residential Life www.reslife.okstate.edu

The Colvin Center encompasses a wide variety of organized and informal recreation activities for all University students. It houses the School of Health, Physical Education, and Leisure as well as recreation, intramural, sports clubs, non-credit activity courses, and outdoor adventure programs. Activity areas available include racquetball, indoor and outdoor swimming, gymnastics, fencing, billiards, dance, golf, table tennis, wrestling, weight lifting, basketball, volleyball, badminton, squash, and indoor climbing wall. Over 50 intramural programs are conducted for women, men, and coed teams. Outdoor facilities available include tennis courts; basketball courts; archery range; golf driving range; jogging track; and fields for soccer, rugby, football, and softball. Facilities are also available at Lake Carl Blackwell and Camp Redlands for sailing, canoeing, and crew. Campus religious centers provide opportunity for worship in both traditional and contemporary services. The 18 religious centers have strategic locations close to campus and, in addition to their own ministries, coordinate many of their efforts with each other and the University's administration.

OKLAHOMA & STILLWATER

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The William S. Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University | Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078-4011 USA
E-mail: spears-info@okstate.edu | Telephone: (405) 744-5064 | Accredited by AACSB International | Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.