An autobiographical example case study describing the path of the first candidate to complete his dissertation defense at the Muma College of Business’ DBA program.
There is no one best course through a Doctorate of Business Administration program but there are paths that maximize your time and value. Some people will wander through the research wilderness until having an epiphany, while others will treat the program like a journey-man and “do the work”, and still others will panic at the end of the third semester and “have to pick a topic for the dissertation”. If you enter the program with even a general idea of your research interest, then there is a different approach.
Rob Hammond is a member of the inaugural cohort of the Muma College of Business DBA program at the University of South Florida. For almost 30 years he has worked in and around sales, marketing and product in large corporations. Rob witnessed enormous waste in sales training and thought it could be done differently. This was his topic of interest. Rob also had an idea from his experiences of what might be causing the issue.
About half way through the first semester, Rob was picking the next paper topic and decided that he would adopt the strategy that he would try to find a way to advance his understanding of his research area in every class. This strategy became the navigation beacon for his DBA journey. This case is documenting this strategy along with a collection of his experiences from the DBA program for the readers in hopes that it may provide future students a few more restful nights as they begin their own academic journeys.
Author: Rob Hammond
Link: https://doi.org/10.28945/3751
Cite as: Hammond, R. (2017). Case study: How I finished my DBA in 2 years…almost Muma Business Review, 1(2). 9-29. https://doi.org/10.28945/3751