Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) Alliant International University

If you want to reach your highest potential in business, the online and on-campus DBA degree program at the California School of Management and Leadership (CSML) in San Diego will give you the experience, expertise, and confidence to make your mark. The Doctor of Business Administration degree program delves deeply into subjects such as business practices, theories, and methodologies; research design; applied research; collaborative research; and others, all with a focus on technology and quantitative analysis. Upon graduation from the program, you'll be prepared to take a leadership position in the dynamic and multicultural world of business, no matter which industry you choose to transform.

Even if you're already an expert in your field, your doctorate degree from a reputable business school validates and confirms your status as a working professional, business leader, and subject matter expert. It can open doors to new opportunities, enhancing your skills, expanding your knowledge, and dramatically increasing your income, whether you choose to lead your own company, take the role of an executive within an organization, or strike out as an independent international business consultant.

If you want to pursue advanced studies with elite business professionals, either online or on-campus, at our university in San Diego, California, the DBA program is the perfect place to start. At Alliant, we make it easy for you to achieve the higher education you need to be among the top business leaders in the country.

Throughout the doctoral program, you'll receive hands-on training, learn valuable life skills, and experience real-world applications of business and international business principles. You'll also complete a competency practicum that we can help you secure, or if you're working, you can use your current company for this valuable work and professional experience, benefitting both you and your organization.

Program Highlights

Degree Concentrations

• Information and Data Science
  This specialization is geared towards students with a focused interest in understanding and contributing to knowledge creation within the broad and contemporary field of the data revolution. Data science can be researched from quantitative, programming, and applied perspectives. The specialization emphasizes research in the data and information science areas from the applied perspective of impacting organizational, management, and competitive perspectives. The program will also provide experience in important, business-related data-science problems in diverse fields including ethical and societal considerations surrounding data science and its applications.
• Management
  This specialization prepares students with broad-based foundational skills for academic research, consulting, and corporate positions in organizations. The specialization is geared towards students with an interest in understanding and contributing to knowledge creation within the fields of strategy in the context of the US as well as the global context, leadership, management, growth and competitiveness, organizational development, and theories. Students learn emerging theories and research issues to develop solutions to complex management problems.
• Marketing
  This specialization is geared towards students with a broad range of interests including but not limited to the organizational strategy of firms, managing and growing organizations, and behavior of employees, teams, and groups, strategies for political and social influence, and organizational learning and adaptation. Doctoral candidates in this specialization will be able to create new knowledge for application in the real world to the evolving needs of complex global organizations and their management. They learn and research theory and application, leading them to impact management practices across the globe.

Accreditation

Alliant International University’s California School of Management and Leadership (CSML) is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) for its Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA), PhD in Leadership, Master’s in Business Administration (MBA), MS in Data Analytics degree, and BS in Business Administration (BSBA) programs.

ACBSP accreditation certifies that the teaching and learning processes offered within CSML programs meet the rigorous educational standards established by the said accrediting body, which is a leading specialized accreditation body for business education across the country. ACBSP’s mission is to promote continuous improvement and recognize teaching excellence through its recognition of business education programs throughout the world.

Learning Outcomes/Goals

• Develop research-based solutions in complex environments using discipline-specific theory in an area of specialization.
• Conduct a scholarly literature review relevant to business decision-making in an area of specialization.
• Demonstrate understanding of multicultural and international issues influencing the success of solutions in organizations.
• Analyze and research contemporary business problems using appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods, tools, or techniques.
• Contribute knowledge by utilizing data and interdisciplinary understanding for identifying business problems and developing solutions that may lead to high functioning and sustainable organizations.
• Demonstrate ethical and professional skills for leadership roles in academia, consulting, or business organizations.
• Demonstrate competence in interpersonal communication in virtual, cross-functional, and/or interdisciplinary teams.

The wide-ranging curriculum of the DBA allows graduates to have a substantial amount of freedom as to what exactly that means. DBA graduates can go into financial analysis and accounting, entrepreneurship, advertising, product management, economist, organizational leadership, executive positions such as CEO, CIO, and CFO, analytics and big data, professional consulting, university-level teaching, investment banking, and others.

Training Model

This is an applied doctoral degree and graduates work in academia, corporations, not-for-profits, consulting agencies upon graduation. Accordingly, the program ensures comprehensive coverage of the body of knowledge and skills needed for graduates to perform successfully in academia as well as corporations and other organizations. The curriculum is a focused, rigorous program with a business and management emphasis as well as a research orientation.

Students must demonstrate an ability to work independently with initiative and diligence to design and implement an empirically grounded and theoretically significant contribution to their field. This is accomplished under the mentorship and supervision of a Doctoral Chair and Committee.

Internship, Practicum, and/or Dissertation Information

In addition to the classroom instruction, on-ground students get real-world experience in real client contexts. This is designed to provide students with in-depth supervised practical learning experiences. These experiences are designed to expose students to learning experiences within the program that require them to apply theory and models to real academic, organizational, or non-profit settings. This is achieved through a variety of learning experiences designed to develop professional practice-related skills in student’s areas of study or specialization. DBA ground students may engage in internship experiences. DBA online students will engage in research projects. In cases where a student in the ground program is unable to secure an internship site, another option such as an applied project will be made available to ensure they meet the course requirements supervised by the instructor.

The internship required may be prior to one academic year in the program. As a result, international students completing the internship series prior to one (1) academic year should contact the International Students Office for details and specialized requirements.

Credit Units

• Total Credit Units: 60
• Total Core Credit Units: 45
• Total Elective Credit Units: N/A
• Total Concentration Credit Units: 15

Degree Requirements

Students must pass a comprehensive exam to ensure qualified doctoral candidacy.

Emphasis/Concentration/Track Requirements

Curriculum Plan

The following curriculum plan is a sample and serves only as a general guide. Curriculum plans and course sequences are subject to variation depending on a student’s start term and other factors such as student course demand. Students must complete all coursework required for their program as set forth in their individual master plan of study.

8-Week Calendar (Online)

8-Week Calendar (On-ground)