Program Information

The minimum requirements for a PhD in Business Administration with a major in Management are reviewed on the following pages and summarized as follows:

Areas	Minimum Credit Hours
Foundation Requirements (may be waived)	0 - 15
Major Field and Concentrations	18
Research Methods Minor Field	15
Discipline Minor Field	12
Economics (may be waived)	0 - 6
Examinations	no credit
*Dissertation Research	16 - 22
Total Minimum Requirement	64

The PhD Program requires a minimum of 64 semester hours beyond a Master's degree or 96 semester credit hours beyond a Bachelor's degree if the student has no Master's degree. To assure achievement of career goals, students and/or their advisory committees may schedule work beyond the 64 credit hour minimum. The length of time required to complete the PhD Program with a major in Management will vary according to a number of factors. A reasonable time horizon is between 4 and 5 years in residence, depending primarily upon prior education and experience.

Each of the areas identified in the summary above are discussed in the following subsections.

Foundation Requirements

The foundation requirements that apply to the PhD program in Business Administration with a major in Management are as follows:

• Basic understanding of calculus concepts, and applications (prior to taking the research methods sequence)
  
  
• Courses or equivalents to provide a basic understanding of concepts in the business disciplines

The Department of Management foundation requirements are satisfied by the completion of one or more (three credit-hour) graduate courses in each of the following areas: accounting, finance, management (organizations and corporate strategy), and marketing.

The doctoral foundation requirements may not count toward the minimum 64 semester credit hours required beyond the master's degree. Applicants with a MBA degree from an AACSB graduate-accredited institution will usually have satisfied all or most of these foundation requirements.

Major Field and Concentrations

A minimum of 18 graduate level credit hours is required in the Management major. These credit hours must be taken after admission to the PhD program. Students who have not taken graduate-level courses previously in organization theory and/or human resource management may be asked to complete appropriate foundation courses.

Management courses that are used to satisfy the foundation requirements may not be counted in the required 18 hours for a major.

The 18 graduate level credit hours is a minimum requirement and must be satisfied by taking at least four Department of Management doctoral seminars (excluding MGMT 687 and MGMT 689, research methods seminars). Two of the four seminars must be:

• Management 634 (Seminar in Organizational Behavior)

• Management 636 (Seminar in Organization Theory)

The 18 hour major requirement may also be met by taking Independent Study (MGMT 685) or Special Topics (MGMT 689). No more than 3 credit hours of MGMT 681 (Seminar) may be counted in the 18 hours required and no more than 6 hours of MGMT 689 (Special Topics) may be counted. The total of MGMT 681, MGMT 685, and MGMT 689 generally shall not exceed 9 credit hours.

As part of the 18 minimum credit hours in the major, all PhD students must complete four of the departmental doctoral seminars listed below (two of which must be MGMT 634 and MGMT 636):

• MGMT 634 (3 hrs) -- Seminar in Organizational Behavior (required of all doctoral students)

• MGMT 636 (3 hrs) -- Seminar in Organization Theory (required of all doctoral students)

• MGMT 624 (3 hrs) -- Seminar in Human Resources

• MGMT 676 (3 hrs) -- Strategy Formulation

• MGMT 677 (3 hrs) -- Strategy Implementation

• MGMT 682 (3 hrs) -- Industrial Organization and Strategic Management

PhD students majoring in Management may specialize by selecting courses and conducting research primarily in a single concentration.

The four concentrations are:

1. Business and Public Policy

2. Human Resources Management and Labor Relations

3. Organizational Behavior/Organization Theory

4. Strategic Management.

Appendix A outlines one possible scenario (among other possibilities) for each of the four concentrations. The concentrations are discussed more fully below.

Business and Public Policy. The Business and Public Policy concentration focuses on such topics as: relationships between the corporation and its political, economic and social environments; legal and regulatory environment of business; influence of regulation on business performance; environmental issues; public affairs function of business; stakeholder and interest group activities; corporate governance; corporate political strategy; and ethical/social responsibility issues.

Human Resources Management and Labor Relations. The Human Resources Management and Labor Relations concentration focuses on such topics as: recruitment, selection, testing, and staffing; human resource planning and forecasting; employee relations and information systems; health and safety programs; job analysis and pay determination; compensation procedures, including benefits and services; design of performance appraisal systems; the strategic process by which human resource programs are developed, adopted, implemented, and evaluated; external influences upon work activity such as unionization, collective bargaining, industry councils, and other forms of formal employee participation; labor force participation rates and the supply of labor; impact of legislative, economic, and political developments relevant to administering human resource programs, including labor legislation, EEO/Affirmative Action legislation, court rulings, and regulatory agency guidelines.

Organizational Behavior/Organization Theory. The Organizational Behavior/Organization Theory concentration focuses on such topics as: individual characteristics such as beliefs, values, and personality; individual processes such as perception, motivation, decision making, judgment, commitment, and control; group characteristics such as size, composition, and structural properties; group processes such as decision making and leadership; organizational processes and practices such as goal setting, appraisal, feedback, rewards, and behavioral aspects of task design as they affect individuals and groups; and change processes within organizations; organizational births and deaths, and the impact of social, economic, and political forces at the population level; organization design and redesign, culture, and adaptation processes at the organization level; management behaviors, strategies, and demographics at a collective managerial level;

Strategic Management. The Strategic Management concentration focuses on such topics as: roles and problems of general managers (e.g., top management team), organizational goal setting; strategy formulation; strategy implementation; strategic planning and decision processes; strategic control and reward systems; resource allocation; diversification and portfolio strategies; competitive strategy; corporate venturing; creation and management of new businesses; and entrepreneurship.

Research Methods Minor Field

The Research Methods Minor field is designed to assure that students have the requisite knowledge and skill to conduct independent research. A minimum of 15 credit hours of course work taken after admission to the PhD program is required for a Research Methods Minor. Six of these 15 hours consist of Management 686 and 687.

Students without a foundation knowledge in statistics that is equivalent to Texas A&M University's Statistics 651, Statistics in Research I (3 hours) and Statistics 652, Statistics in Research II (3 hours) may be required to take these courses or other statistics foundation courses. These courses may not count toward the minimum of 15 credit hours of required course work in the Research Methods Minor field. A basic foundation competency in calculus is also required. The nine hours in additional minimum course work (i.e., in addition to MGMT 686 and MGMT 687) within the Research Methods Minor may be taken (with approval) from such courses as the following:

• ANTH 642 - Research Design in Anthropology

• ANTH 650 - Ethnographic Field Methods

• ECMT 675 - Econometrics I

• ECMT 676 - Econometrics II

• MKTG 690 - Theory of Research in Marketing

• PSYC 607 - Experimental Psychology

• PSYC 623 - Standardized Tests and Measurements

• PSYC 672 - Factor Analysis for Behavioral Scientists

• SOCI 623 - Measurement of Sociological Parameters

• STAT 608 - Least Squares and Regression Analysis

• STAT 609 - Order Statistics and Non-parametric Methods

• STAT 619 - Design and Analysis of Experiments

• STAT 636 - Methods in Multivariate Analysis

In addition, other courses may also be appropriate to satisfy this requirement.

As a part of the research methods questions on the preliminary examination, students may be expected to demonstrate basic competency with commonly used statistical concepts and procedures such as probability theory, ANOVA, MANOVA, factor analysis, multiple regression, and similar procedures. Students should be able to describe when the use of such concepts and procedures are appropriate, cite the kinds of data/sampling requirements that must be met in their use, and interpret how results of such analyses can be used to answer a variety of research questions.

Discipline Minor Field

The discipline minor field is designed to support the student's research and/or career plans. A minimum of 12 graduate level credit hours taken after admission to the PhD program is required for a discipline minor.

The discipline minor may be selected from one of the other fields in Mays Business School (accounting, information & operations management, finance, or marketing), or it may be selected from other disciplines within the University (economics, engineering, political science, psychology, sociology, etc.)

The discipline minor credit hours do not necessarily need to come from a single academic department. For example, a student could pursue an international discipline minor by combining courses from, say, finance, political science, and anthropology.

Students are required to take at least one research methods course as part of their discipline minor. A 685 Problems course (independent study) with up to 3 credit hours may be taken within the minor fields.

Economics

Training in theory and methods of economics is required. Normally, this requirement is satisfied by the Texas A&M University courses: Economics 607 (Micro) and Economics 611 (Macro), or equivalent graduate courses taken at other institutions. The economics requirement may also be satisfied by six credits (hours) of advanced graduate economics courses, econometrics courses excluded, taken at Texas A&M or elsewhere. Any exceptions to this policy or substitutions for Economics 607 and Economics 611 must be approved by the Executive Associate Dean for PhD Programs in Mays Business School. Management 612 (Business Applications of Price Theory) has been approved as a substitute for Economics 607 (Micro).

Examinations

Two examinations (aside from those in courses) are normally part of the PhD program — preliminary and final. The preliminary examination is taken late in the student's program as a comprehensive exam preliminary to doing dissertation research. The final examination, which is oral in nature, concludes the program and assures that the dissertation research is acceptable. The preliminary and final examinations are discussed more fully later in this handbook.

Dissertation Research

The culmination of the program is the dissertation research. Here students demonstrate their abilities and knowledge through independent research. This topic is discussed more fully later in this handbook.