Program

The doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) in management degree program trains students for careers in teaching and research in business management. It admits a small number of highly qualified students, most of whom attend the program full time with financial support.

The program office is located on the Newark Campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. It operates under the auspices of Rutgers Business School (RBS), which spans the Rutgers–Newark and New Brunswick campuses. The program is staffed by RBS faculty on both and by associated faculty at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), which adjoins the Rutgers–Newark Campus. Students take courses at all three campuses, but most of the courses for the program are offered at Rutgers–Newark.

Students in the program major in one of these areas:

  Accounting

  Accounting Information Systems

  Economics

  Finance

  Information Technology

  International Business

  Management Science

  Marketing Science

  Organization Management

  Science, Technology, and Management

  Supply Chain Management

Our program is designed for full-time students. A full-time student is expected to complete the coursework requirements in two years; this requires three or four courses each semester, participation in summer paper seminars in each of the first two years, and regular participation in the professional development program. The student must pass a qualifying examination shortly after completing the coursework and spend the next two years working on a dissertation. Students who enter the program on a full-time basis must have permission of the program director in order to switch to part-time (fewer than 9 credits per semester) status.

By accepting admission as full-time students, applicants commit themselves not to take or continue paid employment, even self-employment, outside the university. Our faculty have the highest standards of performance at the doctoral level, and in order to meet those standards, full-time students must really study full time.

We do not accept applicants who plan to study full time during the coursework stage and then write a dissertation part time.The task of writing a dissertation in our program is more intensive than the task of passing courses and must be approached on a full-time basis.

For further information about the program, including information about financial aid and detailed information about faculty, courses, and major requirements, visit the program's website at http://business.rutgers.edu/phd.

Curriculum
The first two years of a student's program emphasize coursework, but all students are expected to begin research projects by the summer after the first year. Most coursework is completed by the end of the second year, when full-time students take a qualifying examination. Part-time students may delay the completion of their principal coursework and the qualifying examination until the end of the third year. Students who are successful in the qualifying examination then undertake a major research project aimed at producing a dissertation. Full-time students are expected to complete their degree in four to five years.

The doctoral degree requires a total of 72 credits. At least 24 of these credits must be in dissertation research. An additional 6 credits must be taken to satisfy the program's early research requirement. The remaining 42 credits are usually in doctoral courses; the exact number of courses required depends on the major. Additional courses are sometimes needed as prerequisites or to correct academic deficiencies. In addition, students must also satisfy a professional development requirement and English and writing proficiency requirement.

The Major
A student must complete five courses (15 credits) in his or her major. These courses usually define the broad area in which the student writes a dissertation and eventually works as a teacher and scholar. The courses taken to satisfy this requirement must be approved by the faculty, who may require additional courses to correct academic deficiencies.

Requirements for a major are formulated by the department responsible for the major, with the approval of the program director and the coordinating committee. Information on these requirements and on the faculty for each major are provided on the major's webpage.

The Minor
Three courses (9 credits) must be completed in a minor designed to support the work in the major. The minor must be approved by the faculty in the major area, but it normally consists of courses outside the department housing the major. Exceptions are finance and information systems. Finance majors minor in applied economics, which is also housed in the Department of Finance and Economics. Majors in information systems normally pursue their minor in the department responsible for their major; majors in accounting information systems minor in accounting, majors in computer information systems minor in computer science, and majors in information technology minor in management science.

Early Research
Each student must complete two early research papers. Normally the first is completed during the summer after the first year, and the second during the summer after the second year. The student submits a one-page plan for summer research as part of their updated study plan on May 1. This plan must be endorsed by a member of the doctoral faculty, who may or may not be the student's adviser. The student enrolls for 3 credits of early research under the faculty member's supervision. The faculty member assigns a grade at the end of the summer on the basis of the written paper, which must be submitted to the program office as approved by the faculty member in order for the grade for the 3-credit summer work to be recorded.

• The first summer paper often either reviews an important but focused area of literature or replicates an important empirical study.
  
• The second summer paper should demonstrate the student's ability to initiate and complete an original research project. It may evolve into the student's dissertation proposal.

All students must enroll in the first early research requirement in the summer after their first year or earlier. Full-time students normally enroll in the second early research requirement in the summer after their second year. Part-time students may delay it until the summer after their third year.

Professional Development Requirement
During their first year, students must attend a professional development seminar that provides information about the university, the program, and the profession of university teaching. The seminar meets on selected Monday mornings, mainly in the fall semester. Attendance by all first-year students, full time and part time, is required. Information about the seminar during the current academic year is maintained on an online Blackboard website that can be accessed by all students and faculty in the program.

Teaching and Teacher-Training Requirement
In order to graduate, a student must teach at least one course in RBS in the area in which he or she is earning a doctoral degree. The student must also prepare a teaching portfolio, designed for prospective employers and containing a statement of teaching philosophy, syllabi and other teaching material, and peer evaluations of the student's teaching. These requirements apply whether or not a student is supported by the university with a TA stipend. Students who are not supported as TAs are paid by the university as adjunct instructors when they teach. The duties for students with TA stipends vary and may include working as a teaching assistant and occasionally as a research assistant, but during at least one semester, and possibly during several semesters, the TA duty will be to teach a section on one's own. 

Students who are not already prepared to teach at the university level when they enter the program must complete an individualized teacher training program, planned in consultation with their department chair and approved by their doctoral coordinator. Students develop this plan as part of the study-plan update due December 1 of their first year.

Students with TA stipends attend a two-day teacher training program in August before they enter the program. International students who enter as TAs attend an additional two-week teacher-training program in August. All students, whether or not they have a TA stipend and whether they are full time or part time, may be required, as part of the plan for their teacher training, to attend additional training sessions or enroll in specific courses. Many students take 26:120:560 Effective College Teaching before they teach a section on their own.

A student with a TA stipend may have different duties each semester. Sometimes they work as a teaching assistant to a faculty member, sometimes they teach on their own, and sometimes they work as a research assistant. When the student works as a teaching assistant to a faculty member, that faculty member is also responsible for furthering the student's teacher training. This is explained in the letter that is sent each semester to faculty with teaching assistants.

For additional information about improving teaching skills and preparing a teaching portfolio, see the Rutgers–New Brunswick Teaching Excellence Center, and the Teaching Assistant Project of the Rutgers–New Brunswick Graduate School.

English Proficiency Requirement
Students whose primary language is not English may need to take courses to improve their spoken and written English.

On entry, each student whose primary language is not English takes an examination to find out whether they need to take one or more of the following:

• 26:049:109  Comprehension and Conversation
• 26:049:110  Grammar and Composition
• 26:049:113  Advanced Pronunciation
• 26:049:501  Writing Seminar (Prerequisite: 26:049:110 or exemption)

These courses are offered at least once every year. They are designed to bring the student's English and writing proficiency up to the level of a U.S. high school graduate. The student may need to repeat one or more of the courses.

Students should take 26:049:501 in the first year or as soon as they have completed the prerequisite. This course is also offered at least once each year. It involves 1.5 hours of work in class each week, together with 1.5 hours of individual tutoring. It is a college-level writing course. Students who need to take more than one of the high-school level courses (21:049:109, 21:049:110, 21:049:113) should give priority to 110 so that they can take 26:049:501 as soon as possible afterward. A student may request exemption from 26:049:501 on the basis of a sample of writing done for a course in their first semester and submitted to the instructor of the course for a grade.

Additional Requirements
At any time in the program, the faculty may ask a student to take additional work in order to correct deficiencies. Decisions on additional course requirements are normally made by the student's adviser, with the approval of the doctoral coordinator and the program director, when the student's study plan is updated. The additional work may be a full course, a short course, or individualized instruction such as that offered by the Rutgers–Newark Writing Center. 

The major part of the course requirements must be completed before the student takes the qualifying examination. After the qualifying examination, students are expected to spend most of their time working on their dissertation. But in many cases students find it wise to continue developing the breadth of their knowledge by taking a course or two each year at the dissertation stage.

Courses in English, writing, and pedagogy are not degree courses; they do not count towards the 72 credits required for the doctoral degree. The normal course load at the coursework stage for a full-time student with an assistantship is four courses: three degree courses plus an English, writing, or pedagogy course if needed. Self-supported full-time students frequently take four degree courses.

The Qualifying Examination
The purpose of the qualifying examination is to determine whether the student has acquired sufficient mastery of his or her major area of study to warrant admission to candidacy. The examination is conducted by a committee of at least four members of the student's area faculty. The student should obtain a copy of the Advancement to Candidacy form from the program office, complete the first page of the form, and submit it to the chair of the examination committee at the time of the examination. The Advancement to Candidacy form is an official university document. The entire examination committee must sign the form on the second page, indicating whether the student has passed or failed. The chair should then return the form to the program office. If the student fails the examination, the form is retained in the program office (and should be retrieved by the student when the examination is repeated). If the student passes, the form is forwarded to the Rutgers Graduate School–Newark. Upon approval by the graduate school, the student is then officially advanced to candidacy, or ABD (all but dissertation) status.

Full-time students are required to take their qualifying examination at the end of two years of coursework. Part-time students may delay this timetable by only one year. A student who fails the examination must take it a second time and pass within one semester. Students who fail the second time must leave the program; no third attempt is allowed.

In order to appeal a decision by the qualifying examination committee, a student must submit a written statement to the program director within two weeks of receiving notification of the decision. Any such appeal is reviewed by the program's executive committee. 

In order to be sure that the qualifying examination committee is accurately informed of the training that the program has provided, the student is advised to retain syllabi of all courses taken in the program and to provide a copy of these syllabi to the departmental doctoral coordinator and the chair of the qualifying examination committee when the qualifying examination is scheduled. The package should indicate clearly which courses were major courses, which were minor courses, and which were foundation/methodology courses.

The Dissertation
To complete his or her doctoral degree, the candidate must pursue an original investigation under faculty direction and present the results in a dissertation. In addition to the information on this page, you may download some additional instructions concerning the dissertation, including procedures for the proposal defense.

Within one year of passing the qualifying examination, the candidate must submit a written proposal that presents the projected content of the dissertation. The proposal is the vehicle for communicating the candidate's project to the faculty. It should provide sufficient detail to allow faculty knowledgeable in the subject area to determine the validity and acceptability of the research, both in terms of quality and quantity. According to university rules, it should be prepared and defended in public before the candidate's dissertation committee as soon as the candidate and the adviser have agreed on preliminary guidelines for the dissertation. The chair of the dissertation committee, the dissertation adviser, determines the format of the proposal defense and conducts it.

The chair must inform the program director of the time and place of the proposal defense at least two weeks in advance. At the same time, the student must submit an abstract of the proposal and the URL of a website that makes the abstract available to the public and will serve as a platform for the student's job search. Upon receiving this information, the program office will circulate an announcement of the defense to all members of the doctoral faculty who may have an interest in the topic.

The outside member should be consulted about the written proposal and should be at the defense if possible. After the proposal defense, the dissertation adviser submits a copy of the proposal to the program office, together with a one-paragraph summary of the advice and direction that the dissertation committee has provided to the candidate in response to it.

Please Note:

Students who pass their qualifying examination anytime from April through September will automatically be placed on academic probation if they have not defended their proposal by December 1 of the following year.

Students who pass their qualifying examination anytime from October through March will be placed on academic probation if they have not defended their proposal by May 1 of the following year.

The program director must approve and formally appoint the dissertation committee, including its chair and outside member, before the proposal is defended. The candidate or adviser must submit this request by letter to the program office, with a copy to the departmental doctoral coordinator. The dissertation committee must have at least four members, one of whom is from outside the program's faculty (and outside Rutgers Business School and the units of NJIT that participate in the program). The outside member must be a scholarly authority in the area of the student's dissertation work. Preferably, the outside member should be from outside Rutgers and NJIT altogether, but this is not required. The committee must have at least one member from Rutgers Business School. The chair of the committee, the dissertation adviser, may be from outside Rutgers and NJIT, but he or she must be appointed to the faculty of the Graduate School–Newark.

The dissertation committee is the candidate's advising group. The candidate is strongly advised to submit research results to all its members on a regular basis. The committee should regularly review the candidate's program of study and may prescribe additional coursework or readings at any time. The completed dissertation must be approved by all members of the committee.

The completed dissertation must be defended in public before the dissertation committee. It must be in the hands of all members of the committee at least one month prior to this defense. The format of the defense, which is set by the dissertation adviser, must include an opportunity for any member of the faculty to question the candidate on the research. The defense is scheduled by the dissertation adviser, who must inform the program director of its time and place at least two weeks in advance. Upon receiving this notification and a copy of the completed dissertation, the program office will circulate an announcement of the defense to all members of the graduate faculty who may have an interest in the topic of the dissertation. In order to ensure the integrity of the process, the program office will not circulate the announcement, and the defense will not be officially scheduled, unless the program director is satisfied that the completed dissertation submitted to the program office is already in the hands of all members of the dissertation committee.

For further details concerning the rules governing the dissertation, see the Dissertation page in the Degree Requirements chapter in this catalog. The information there includes the following:

A final public examination is held under the auspices of the committee in charge of the candidate's course of study. At this examination, the candidate must defend the dissertation and otherwise satisfy the committee and other faculty members in attendance that he or she is qualified to receive the degree of doctor of philosophy. 

At the time of the final examination, the student is responsible for obtaining from the Office of the Dean the candidacy application upon which the result of the qualifying examination is recorded. The committee members complete this application at the final examination and sign the title page of the dissertation to signify their acceptance of it. 

Once the program director certifies that all program requirements have been completed for the degree of doctor of philosophy, the candidate must return the candidacy application to the Office of the Dean. Additional materials to be submitted at this time include one original and one photocopy of the dissertation on 100 percent cotton-content bond paper, two copies of the title page and abstract, the receipted payment form for microfilming, the microfilming agreement form, and additional survey forms as required. All of the above materials must be submitted to the Office of the Dean no later than the announced deadlines for completing degree requirements.

In the event that the dissertation committee fails to accept the dissertation, resulting in the student failing to meet the next announced deadline for submitting all materials (these deadlines are October 1, January 1, and May 1), and the student subsequently revises the dissertation so that it may be acceptable to the committee and the faculty, the dissertation defense must be reconvened, with the revised dissertation again being provided to the committee a month in advance and notice again being provided to the faculty at least two weeks in advance.

The dissertation must be prepared following the graduate school's style guide, which may be downloaded from the RBS forms page (http://business.rutgers.edu/phd/current-students/downloadable-forms) or obtained from the program office.

After the dissertation is deposited with the university, the students may wish to publish it with the traditional dissertation publisher, University Microfilms (UMI), or with the newer online dissertation publishing service, Dissertation.com.

Transferring Credit
Credit for a course in another program, in which a student has earned no less than a B, may be transferred into the program. Transfer of credit is subject to the rules of the Graduate School–Newark, which limits transfers to at most 40 percent of a student's course requirements (at most 18 credits) and permits it only after the student has completed 12 hours of credit in the program with a B or better. The student must provide documentation to the program office that shows that the course is equivalent to a doctoral level course at Rutgers or NJIT or else be complementary to the student's program of study. Each transfer must be approved by the program director and the dean of the Graduate School–Newark. (See the section under Academic Policies and Procedures in this catalog.)