Professional Doctorate in Management

About the course

This programme is group-based so will give you a thorough understanding of group dynamics, and the way in which they affect change in organisations. Staff and students work together as a learning community, participating together in their research enquiries, in a way which reflects an understanding of organisational life as fundamentally conversational in nature. You will be encouraged to link your experience in the research community directly to your research question, so your work on the programme will be of immediate benefit, both to you and your organisation.

This programme is designed for leaders, managers, internal and external consultants in organisations who want to articulate what is being ignored in the dominant theoretical approaches to organisational life. Orthodox management literature stresses the predictable and rational aspects of managing, while on the programme you will be encouraged to pay attention to the ways in which leaders and managers are required continuously to act into the unknown.

During your time on the programme you will work with your own experience of change in your organisation, or in your consultancy practice. You will develop insights into your practice following an iterative cycle of reading, writing, thinking, rewriting and rethinking, all brought together through your active participation in the programme. You will develop a series of projects that relate to your work in your organisation and you will be encouraged to pay attention to how your practice is changing in your role as leader, manager or consultant and as a direct result of your research. Over a minimum of three years, your projects will develop into a thesis in which you will also be required to identify and evaluate your contribution to knowledge and to your area of practice.

What’s next for my career?

The University's Business and Management Studies were ranked in the top 25% of UK universities for research impact (Research Excellence Framework, 2021)

As a participant on the programme, you will be expected to:

• Reflect upon and make sense of personal experience of change and continuity in organisations in the interests of many persons acting simultaneously into unfolding organisational life
• Develop your understanding of group dynamics, power relations and their underpinning ideologies and role formation in organisations
• Explore the consequences of uncertainty and not knowing in organisations.

Applicants should have a minimum of 5 years' relevant management or management consulting experience. An honours degree (at least 2:2 or above) and a relevant Master's degree such as an MBA or MA (Management Studies) would be preferred.