Business Administration

The PhD Program in Business Administration welcomes applications from intelligent, motivated and creative individuals planning research-oriented academic careers.

As well as gaining access to a world of knowledge and opportunity, Sauder PhD students benefit from the individual attention you'll receive from faculty members - right from the outset of the program. Our faculty members devote extensive time, energy and effort to developing the research capabilities of all of our PhD students.

You can expect to do a minimum of two years of formal course work. Including thesis preparation and defence, most students require at least four years to complete the doctoral degree. 

The university has established a six-year overall limit on the time to completion of the doctoral degree and expects you to have a passed the comprehensive examination and presented a thesis proposal by the end of three years.

Your course work combines study of the foundation areas of business, the concepts and methods of which may be applied in research and the decision-making process, with core courses in relevant management decision areas.

Foundation areas include:

• mathematics
• statistics
• economics
• computer science
• psychology
• philosophy.

Choose core courses from:

• Accounting
• Finance
• Management Information Systems
• Management Science 
• Marketing
• Organizational Behaviour
• Strategy and Business Economics
• Real Estate and Urban Economics. 

Applicants are required to submit the following:

• Graduate Management Aptitude Test and/or the Graduate Record Exam scores
• Test of English as a Foreign Language or the International English Language Testing Service or the Michigan English Language Assessment Battery
• Transcripts
• Letters of Recommendation
• Supplementary Application/Statement of Intent
• Curriculum Vitae (CV)

For incoming students, our financial support includes tuition plus $30,000 per year for the first five years of the PhD Program, assuming that the student maintains satisfactory progress in the PhD program.

In addition to the $30,000 support, tuition fees are covered for the first five years.  The financial support of $30,000 per year is typically arranged in the following way:

First Year
$20,000 fellowship plus a summer research assistantship of $10,000.

Second Year
$20,000 research assistantship during the academic year plus a summer research assistantship of $10,000.

Third Year to Fifth Year
$20,000 combination of research assistantship and/or teaching assistantship during the academic year plus a summer research assistantship of $10,000.

Doctoral students are expected to be in residence year-round. For academic reasons, outside employment is discouraged. Course work, research papers, seminars, and summer research projects are all challenging and time-consuming.