Difference Between DBA and PhD

 Are you perplexed in choosing between a PhD in Management and a DBA degree? The first thing you need to question yourself is whether you want a professional career or an academic value. Just like you, most of the research candidates are unable to decide whether they should pursue the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) or the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA). As both programs have a research focus, it is hard to realize the actual Difference Between DBA and PhD. But there is something unique between them that causes to be different. Let us discuss them below. 

1. Target Groups: Who all do this program?

PhD in Management and DBA programs target different groups of candidates. Aspirants who want to study a PhD program generally aim at a career in social sciences and want to become a fulltime professor at some institution or a business school. Their ultimate goal is to continue their academics and do research work. Such students have completed their graduation from a college or university and start their PhD program in their 20s with no much professional experience. 

In contrast, candidates who wish to pursue DBA are ones who have their successful business and look for some new intellectual challenge ahead. These people already have MBA in their hands and want to get one more wing by doing a doctoral degree. These candidates are older than PhD students somewhere in their 30s, 40s, or older. They have a good professional experience and are at senior designation with handsome salary. Their ambition is generally management research that benefits in solving their business problems and achieving long term goals. 

2. Motivation: What is their ultimate goal behind this career?

One major Difference Between DBA and PhD lies between their motivation and career perspective. Like for PhD students, the PhD is the way to their academic career. Once they qualify them as scholars, they kick start their career as a full-time professor at a business school.

While DBA are majorly aimed in doing research work for a personal challenge or business objective. Some of them have done MBA and others own a successful business. By committing a new challenge, they want to boost their practical knowledge which helps them to grow in their respective business fields. In a few words, they can be referred to as potential researchers.

3. Data Access: What data they can access?

The key substance of any research program is data which has to be analyzed and grown over time. Whether qualitative data or quantitative data, this data is the basis for researches and has to be analyzed to find support for or against your hypotheses. Every scholar(referring to PhD candidate) has to work upon data until they are ready to publish their own theoretical papers. While research work, they have access to all that unique database required to publish top journals. Moreover, PhD students have to prepare their own repository of data from scratch by means of an online survey or by collecting, coding, and processing publicly available data. 

On the other hand, many DBA students have access to data in their own businesses. This data is usually unique and private and so can only be used for their dissertation under serious confidentiality clauses. 

4. Long-Term Goals: What to do after qualifying the research program?

Aspirants who qualify PhD in Management studies seek an academic career as full-time professors in reputed institutions after graduating or go for a Postdoc for some years. Research is their key activity which ends to publishing in academic journals or books along with the teaching profession.

In comparison to that, DBA graduates usually work as professionals in some companies and want to continue their profession even after completing their graduation. By qualifying doctoral degree, they are eligible to engage in research work as well. They may become guest professors, or serve as adjunct faculty occasionally and publish their findings in some academic journals. Once after completing DBA, the doctor title followed by their name opens doors to leading designations in their company. 

5. Knowledge creation: What is the start and end of these two doctoral programs?

The key goal of the PhD students is to develop new theories which can be published in top management journals. Anything that surrounds new facts and origin has higher chances to be marked in journals. Though they start their research work with existing theories and end to new observations and conclusions. Generally, PhD in Management students work on research subjects that are considered as important gaps by the academic community. 

Whereas the DBA students don't focus on bringing new theories, they just integrate the existing theories with their concrete business problems. Their start is any business problem that belongs to their company and the DBA dissertation may generate a theoretical model that explains that specific problem. With the help of research abstracts, the DBA is able to understand and solve business problems in a better way. This DBA dissertation uses a case-study approach rather than an empirical research approach followed by PhD students.

6. Program mode: Time invested in completing the course

Most of the business schools offer PhD programs on a part-time basis and some DBA programs can be completed on a full-time basis. While general fundamental says that PhD programs are full-time programs and DBA programs can be studied part-time.

Commonly DBA students do not leave their work during the entire program and therefore DBA programs are categorized as blended programs and mix distance or online learning with residential periods. Students can communicate online with their leads, professors, and their peer group over their coursework in some weeks per year. Overall, these DBA programs offer the students a lot of flexibility in completing the program. 

7. Finance Management: PhD vs DBA

Students who pursue PhD in Management students from top schools, often get financial support during the studies in form of scholarship or by working at a position of research assistant. While DBA students generally have to pay for their education even though some schools offer them a scholarship.

As discussed, PhD students do not work as professionals and hence depend on a solid financing plan. DBA students, in contrast, are earning individuals who can use their savings to pay the tuition fees. Few companies financially assist their DBA pursuing employees when they use the data from the employers and when their research is relevant for their companies. In the case of PhD pursuing students, big universities fund their students and hold an interest in their future publication. If the PhD student finally becomes a full-time professor at a renowned business school and publishes in top journals, the university's reputation ultimately grows up.