Global DBA (Asia Track)

emlyon Global DBA Asia Track is designed for senior business veterans who are fully aware of the importance of the theories and techniques of globalization strategies in today’s business education. Many of our DBA participants are not only business leaders, but also influencers in their respective sectors given their established achievements. In the future, they have the potential to become industry leaders by systematically enhancing their way of thinking through a DBA Program and generating more profound value at both personal and social levels.

• Founded by emlyon business school, one of the best institutions in Europe, emlyon Global DBA Asia Track launched its sixth intake in 2019.
• The faculty and advisors at emlyon Global DBA Asia Track are all world-class scholars in their respective domains, with frequent publications on top-notch journals.
• The curriculum of emlyon Global DBA Asia Track is optimized to ensure that all participants are able to complete their premium research applications and dissertations. Moreover, the participants and advisors are closely connected so that the participants will achieve periodical progresses under the supervision of their advisors, which guarantees the quality of research, the originality of knowledge creation and the ultimate success.

Though both programs facilitate future career development, they are visibly distinctive:

• An EMBA (Executive Master of Business Administration) program is designed to develop managers’ capabilities of strategic decision-making in business operations and management, and to expand their knowledge base. Compared with similar master programs, an EMBA program is highly based on lectures instead of research. It usually consists of hundreds of hours of workshops, including lectures, presentations, seminars, simulations and research. EMBA participants often want to achieve improvement and influence in a particular area of expertise.
• In contrary, a DBA (Doctor of Business Administration) program is designed to help experienced executives to properly organize and optimize their existing business and management expertise in their specific environments. A master’s degree or higher is required for DBA applicants, including MBA, EMBA or an equivalent master's degree. DBA participants are often business executives who intend to open up new horizons and inspire new ideas through the guidance of academic researchers and use scientific methodology to study business and management issues that have a significant impact on the business or industry. Meanwhile, in the process of dissertation preparation, they will also review their industry insights and management experience, clarify and organize their business and management expertise, and reach the “peak” of their career and personal lives by influencing their businesses, industries and the society through dissertations, publications and other outputs. In addition, some participants may plan to change their professional roadmap by sitting in a DBA program, to become a consultant or a part-time lecturer at a university.
• Different from a management-practice-oriented EMBA program, a DBA program focuses on methodology based on research and management theories, through research and doctorate dissertation under the supervision of advisors.

A PhD program is designed for people who intend to become scholars and/or researchers, which is a research-based full-time program that has no requirement on professional experience. A PhD dissertation is fully research oriented and theoretical. The average age of PhD participants is below 30.

• Most DBA programs are part-time and designed to help senior executives consolidate and sort out their established professional experience. The average age of DBA participants is 42 and most of DBA participants range from 35 to 55. In recognition of the importance of such valuable experiences in business education, DBA graduates are fully recognized as “doctors” in the credentials of world-class business schools.
• DBA applicants are required to have 8 years of experience in management or longer. Though a DBA dissertation is also based on research, it aims at management expertise suitable for “real-world” applications.

A DBA applicant is required to have a master’s degree, including Master of Science, Master of Philosophy, EMBA, MBA or an equivalent degree.

The Admission Review Committee will review the application package submitted by an applicant. Applicants with excellent management experience will be given priority. The most important part of the application includes the interview and the applicant's interest in independent research – therefore, a statement of purpose that clearly shows his/her academic direction and research interest plays a decisive role in the admission process.

Terms of payment:

• 46,000 euros due on the date agreed under the notice of pre-offer (before enrolment);
• 40,000 euros due on the commencement of the 2nd stage (the 18th month after enrolment).

If a participant has to drop out of the Program for personal reasons before the commencement of the curriculum, the tuition can be refunded after deducting 5,000 euros for registration and administration. Once the curriculum starts, no refund is applicable, unless the Program is terminated for special reasons, in which case the tuition in proportion to the part of curriculum that hasn’t occurred will be refunded. If a participant quits in the first stage, he/she doesn’t need to pay the tuition of the second stage.

• It takes four years to complete emlyon GLOBAL DBA Program.
• Starting from July 2020, the first stage of the Program takes 18 months. Participants that have successfully complete the first stage will be awarded with Master of Management Studies and permitted to proceed with the second stage.
• The second stage takes 30 months, which is expected to end in July 2024.
• In special cases, a participant may apply for no more than two 1-year extensions, subject to proper reasons and related evidences.

• The first stage of the Program includes eight workshops, amounting to 25 days. Each workshop takes 3-4 days.
• You will travel to worldwide emlyon campuses for these workshops, in addition to overseas studies at our partnering institutions in Europe, Asia and Americas.

The degrees of emlyon DBA will be awarded by emlyon business school.

Either in English or in Chinese.

It aims to foster industry scholar-leaders

• 1-to-1 mentoring and supervision ensures top-notch research findings.
• Practicality is the ongoing focus of our business education.
• It creates an academic environment and facilitates the systematic application of critical thinking in business processes.
• The interaction between DBA participants leads to the valuable network of business elites.
• Our DBA graduates have the opportunities to turn into scholars and senior consultants or stand out in their respective domains.
• Only 70 institutions have been awarded all three certifications of AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS and emlyon business school is one of the top 1% world-leading business schools.

• The first stage consists of 8 essential workshops and no absence is acceptable. If an absence is inevitable due to emergency, you have to retake the specific workshop the next year. However, only when you attend all research and management workshops and pass the dissertation proposal defence, can you complete the first stage and be allowed to enter the second stage.
• No absence is acceptable for dissertation proposal defence, dissertation pre-defence and final dissertation defence. If you are absent in any of the said defences, your graduation will be postponed to the next year.

• In most cases, emlyon DBA advisors are multilingual and diverse.
• If you choose to write your dissertation in Chinese, a Chinese-speaking advisor is available. If you choose to write it in English, there will be more advisors at your service.

emlyon GLOBAL DBA Program features 144 full-time professors. The diversity of their research interests is one of the key advantages of emlyon GLOBAL DBA Program.

emlyon GLOBAL DBA participants can access the digital library and online resources of emlyon business school.

• As one of the features of the Program, there are 8 methodology workshops over the 18 months in the first stage. Each workshop takes 3-4 days. There are two dissertation defences in Year 3-4.
• The Program will also organize DBA seminars, conferences and company visits from time to time.

emlyon GLOBAL DBA Program includes two stages. The first stage is guided by mentor, that is, the dedicated academic director of emlyon GLOBAL DBA Program will provide academic guidelines and offer 1-to-1 mentoring on specific deliverables in this stage, including research plan, literature review and dissertation proposal. In the second stage, a DBA advisor in the related domain will be assigned to each participant in accordance with his/her research interest and field stated in his/her dissertation proposal. The participant will engage in detailed research under the guidance of his/her advisor.

• It is important to keep in touch with your advisor on a regular and consistent basis so that your advisor is informed of your dissertation progress on a timely manner.
• It is advisable to communicate with your advisor in writing once every 2-3 months by submitting a research briefing on your progress, challenges encountered and next steps.
• You may reach an agreement on the frequency of non-written communication as needed.
• Noticeably, the role of an advisor is to support and guide the participant, instead of leading or instructing the participant how to deal with the research. Therefore, participants shall be highly proactive, be able to engage in the research independently and come to their advisors with specific and concrete questions.

• Problem identification: Focus on business and management problems that have a significant and practical impact on the business and industry;
• Theories and literature: Fully review and refer to business and management theories related to the problems in question;
• Research design: Clearly define the observation variables involved in the problems in question, and collect and measure the first-hand and public data of such variables;
• Data analysis: Show well-designed and relevant methods of data analysis and interpret the business and management lessons revealed by the results;
• Word count: 40,000-60,000 English words or 60,000-90,000 Chinese characters.