PROFESSIONAL EXECUTIVE DOCTORATES: A COMPARISON OF MEMBER SCHOOLS OF THE EXECUTIVE DBA COUNCIL (EDBAC) Larry M. Starr Doctoral Studies in Strategic Leadership, Philadelphia University, 4201 Henry Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19401 Email:
[email protected] William Connor McRory Department of Political Science, Fordham University, New York, New York Samuel Lim School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Research and Consulting Associate, Systems Wisdom LLC Singapore PREPARED FOR THE EXECUTIVE DBA COUNCIL SIXTH INTERNATIONAL ENGAGED MANAGEMENT SCHOLARSHIP CONFERENCE Paris, France September 8-11, 2016 ABSTRACT Founded in 2011, the mission of the Executive DBA Council (EDBAC) is to foster excellence and innovation in executive doctoral degree programs worldwide. The Council’s strategic focus includes being the primary point of contact and information source for these professional groups, for the media and business schools considering initiating executive doctoral degree programs, and to provide information on executive doctoral degree programs to prospective students. To support these ends using information available from member websites and other online sources, we present a description of 27 characteristics of 43 member schools and a summary table of characteristics across all schools. PROFESSIONAL EXECUTIVE DOCTORATES: A COMPARISON OF MEMBER SCHOOLS OF THE EXECUTIVE DBA COUNCIL (EDBAC) Larry M. Starr, William Connor McRory and Samuel Lim Introduction In 2015, Philadelphia University was preparing to launch a Doctor of Management (D. Mgt.) degree in Strategic Leadership. While immersed in studying the broad topic of professional doctorates and collecting and writing the curricular materials to be submitted to Middle States Commission on Higher Education in order to meet accreditation requirements, the website of the Executive DBA Council (www.edbac.org) was discovered.