Having worked in health care marketing, Michael Toomey has noticed key differences in how medical and business professionals make decisions.
“Through research and conducting tests, medical professionals tend to make more evidence-based decisions,” said Toomey, who is senior director of marketing of Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech company Vericel Corp. “While working in an adjacent industry, I noticed that businesses didn’t conduct the same rigor of research before making decisions.”
Looking to gain research skills so he can help his company make more research-based decisions, Toomey decided to pursue a doctorate.
Toomey learned about the University of Rhode Island’s new Doctor of Business Administration program, and in 2020 he enrolled as a member of the program’s inaugural class. This year, Toomey was one of the first six students to earn a DBA from the university.
A DBA is a professional doctorate degree and programs are designed to teach established business professionals how to use a variety of different research tools that can help them make more-informed decisions, says Georges Tsafack, associate professor and executive director of URI’s DBA program.
“People tend to make decisions based on their gut and experience, but that can be risky,” Tsafack said. “The goal of the DBA is to combine this experience with science and teach executives how to make decisions based on evidence.”
URI is currently home to Rhode Island’s only professional doctorate in business administration program accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, according to Sean Edmund Rogers, dean of the URI College of Business. Johnson & Wales University also offers an online DBA, and the program has earned regional accreditation from the New England Commission of Higher Education.
A DBA differs from an MBA because it is more focused on applied research, while MBA students spend more time studying practical business subjects, Tsafack says.
The degree is also different from a Ph.D in business because those seeking a DBA tend to be people with established careers in business and are looking for another academic challenge or to expand their professional skills. On the other hand, those pursuing a Ph.D. usually start shortly after earning an undergraduate degree and are beginning a career path as a professor or academic, Tsafack says.
DBA programs typically take around three years to complete and students in URI’s program spend approximately 10 to 15 hours per week on coursework. URI’s program also includes four in-person “residencies” each year when students come to campus for an event Friday evening and attend classes throughout the weekend, Toomey says.
While going back to school and managing the coursework of a DBA program on top of a full-time job may seem difficult to some, Toomey says URI’s program offered a blend of in-person and virtual learning, which was helpful.
“I definitely had to relearn how to be a student again,” Toomey said. “But I was able to manage the time with flexibility and focused planning around my work schedule.”
Along with learning how to use and apply different research tools, students in a DBA program produce their own research dissertations and often with the aim of having their work published. Tsafack says this can be a competitive and lengthy process that takes anywhere between four to 10 years, extending beyond a student’s time in the DBA program.
Students tend to focus their research on answering specific questions or addressing problems that come up in their work environment. For example, Toomey’s research is focused on the relationship between a company’s organizational structure and how its products perform when they hit the market.
Each student is also paired with a faculty mentor, says Christy Ashley, a professor in URI’s DBA program. This mentor is also usually part of a student’s dissertation committee, which is made up of at least two faculty members and offers guidance throughout the research process.
Ashley says these mentor-mentee relationships and committees allow faculty members to foster stronger connections with students, and there is a chance graduates could serve as future mentors.
“DBA is a lifetime membership and there are always opportunities for them to come back in the future,” said Ashley, who is also the associate dean of undergraduate programs at URI.
While there were only six students in the first graduating class, Ashley and Tsafack say the program has slowly been expanding. Ten students were admitted in the most recent cohort.
Tsafack notes that offering a DBA can boost the university’s research reputation and connection to the real world with the program’s focus on practical research, and the program generates a substantial amount of revenue. He says that attracting successful professionals to the DBA program enhances the university’s alumni pool.
Toomey says earning his DBA degree was well worth the financial and time commitments.
“It’s easy to feel our business problems are unique, but the experience of going back to earn a DBA showed me there is a lot of research that has been done into similar issues,” Toomey said. “This program was absolutely worth it.”
