Talk:Doctor of Business Administration

Professional Research Doctorate?
Not all DBA's are "professional" research doctorates. Depending on the school, some DBA's are more theoretical than Ph.D.'s, and less applied.

I removed the "professional" from "professional doctorate". A DBA is not a first professional degree.

If you get a DBA, what kind of jobs can you do? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.255.202.207 (talk) 11:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the perspective that DBA's, as a result of the DBA research focus being on applied theory versus the development of new theory, and, as a result, DBA's are not as well applied to careers in academia as would be a PhD, Boston University's website describes the DBA practicum and program deliverable as such:

"Management education must impart the skills required to respond to technological changes, the information revolution, global competition, and constant shifts in political and social environments. Many of the management models adopted by business are outdated, and call for innovative ideas rooted in solid academic research.

Boston University’s DBA program addresses this need by training scholars to develop and sharpen management theories to enhance their contribution to management education and practice." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.114.218.86 (talk) 19:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There are indeed a few schools, such as Harvard Business School and Boston University's School of Management, that issue DBAs as an approximate substitute for the Ph.D., because these schools have not come to an agreement with the Graduate School that controls Ph.D. granting at their universities. However, most D.B.A.s are granted by programs that set them apart from the Ph.D., and gear them at older, more applied students - in particular practicing executives. A good example of the demarcation is at Case-Western: /http://weatherhead.case.edu/degrees/doctor-management/.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 14:12, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Listing of Schools offering D.B.A. degrees
I have removed a list of schools offering D.B.A. degrees from this Talk page multiple times. If someone needs to reference the list, it's in the history. But it's not appropriate for this Talk page as it is not discussion related to the improvement of the article. Our guidelines are very clear on this. It's also quite silly to take up such a ginormous amount of space in this Talk page when the same material is so easily viewed in the history where it won't clutter this page and make it very difficult to use. ElKevbo (talk) 23:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. --A. Poinçot (talk) 00:37, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

D.B.A. Schools
A current list of schools offering Doctor of Business Administration degrees may be found here: DBA Schools — Preceding unsigned comment added by APoincot (talk • contribs) 01:49, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Business Schools offering a D.B.A. Degree
There is an unsourced alphabetized list of business schools offering a DBA degree. I removed it here, but it was reinserted here, so I am bringing it to the talk page. I think this list violates WP:NOTDIRECTORY and that it would be better served as a category. I am interested in hearing the thoughts of others. Thanks, Bahooka (talk) 19:17, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
 * As you can see above, I tried to do this almost five years so ago so I wholeheartedly support this action. ElKevbo (talk) 20:19, 12 December 2017 (UTC).
 * Please stop removing these sample schools of business. The community clearly wants this section as it keeps getting inserted except for users ElKevbo and talk.
 * Please be civil. This is not a violation of the WP:NOTDIRECTORY as it is not a directory or meant to be an extensive directory, which would violate the policy. It is a list of some schools that offer DBA programs and its inclusion complements the article. There are countless examples on Wikipedia of such sample collections. For example, if you look at Doctor_of_Management you will see examples of Doctoral Management Specialties. I do not see anyone claiming that to be a list or removing it. (2A02:587:450D:B00:78C7:98CF:CDDC:383 (talk) 22:52, 26 December 2017 (UTC)) Dear ElKevbo you have undone my last change without any discussion when I have not in any way violated Wikipedia policy as you are accusing me of doing. I ask that ElKevbo do not enforce your bias. Please restore my last change or provide a reasonable justification as to how this violates Wikipedia Policy. Do not direct me to a policy that you have clearly not read. (2A02:587:450D:B00:78C7:98CF:CDDC:383 (talk) 02:14, 27 December 2017 (UTC))
 * This is an encyclopedia article about the subject, not a guide for prospective students. If you would like to include some examples of institutions that offer this degree, please let us know what inclusion criteria and references you propose to use. ElKevbo (talk) 02:53, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Tone Template Banner
I removed the 2015 tone template banner, which was added by a user who has not edited this page since. The banner seems less pertinent after numerous page edits and updates over the last eight years. TopicExplorer (talk) 02:04, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Notability doesn't govern the content of articles
MrOllie has begun an edit war to remove this bullet point from the "Notable persons with a DBA degree" section of this article:


 * Lily Bi – Chief Executive Officer, AACSB

In their first edit, they used the edit summary "Not notable as Wikipedia defines it". In their second edit summary, they wrote "When we title a list of persons 'notable' it generally means that the list inclusion criteria is that all entries of the list have associated articles, as was the case here until this addition".

WP:N explicitly says that it "does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article." WP:LISTBIO makes this more clear for embedded lists like one: "Inclusion in lists contained within articles should be determined by WP:SOURCELIST, in that the entries must have the same importance to the subject as would be required for the entry to be included in the text of the article according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines".

It's also ridiculous to claim that each time we use the word "notable" in an article or in the title of a section we mean "notable in the very specific and limited way in which this common word is defined in Wikipedia." We don't require redefine words in articles to suit our own specific needs in this project simply because they're used in specific ways by Wikipedia editors e.g., we don't require editors to only use "template" to refer to "template" as it's used in Wikipedia.

If we were intended to interpret "notable" as "meeting Wikipedia's notability criteria" then WP:N wouldn't explicitly say otherwise. ElKevbo (talk) 23:01, 19 July 2023 (UTC)


 * When we use the word 'notable' in the description of a list on Wikipedia, it does indeed generally mean that the inclusion criteria of the list is that the entry has a Wikipedia article. This is is one of the common selection criteria for lists - probably the most common one. WP:N is not in conflict with this. I'll also note that the only source for this mention is a primary one, the website of the organization the person heads. I'm also not the only one who has been maintaining this list in this way.MrOllie (talk) 23:06, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * you've made similar edits, such as . Care to weigh in? - MrOllie (talk) 23:10, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:N explicitly says that it "does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article" cannot possibly be more clear. If you think that it's wrong or should be changed, you need to take that up there. ElKevbo (talk) 23:13, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You seem to be misunderstanding common practice here. This sort of criteria is so common that we have a standard warning template about these sorts of additions at Uw-badlistentry which explicitly references notability. I don't think WP:N needs to be changed because I do not agree with you that the present set of policies and guidelines forbids this sort of list inclusion critereon. MrOllie (talk) 23:15, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You are insisting that WP:N sometimes determines the contents of articles. Yet WP:N says that it "does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article". Do you see the problem there? ElKevbo (talk) 23:22, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:N also says unless editors agree to use notability as part of the list selection criteria. MrOllie (talk) 23:24, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It says that for stand-alone lists - this is not a stand-alone list. ElKevbo (talk) 23:26, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I see nothing which limits the availability of list selection criteria to stand alone lists. It would be a funny world (and a bureaucratic one) if by embedding a list into an article we somehow lost the ability to discriminate as to its contents. I don't believe we live in such a world. MrOllie (talk) 23:27, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Don't be ridiculous. If WP:N were meant to apply to embedded lists then surely the statement about stand-alone lists would not have been written in that way. And WP:LISTBIO would be written differently, too.
 * But of course we can determine what does and doesn't belong in an embedded list! We simply can't use Wikipedia's internal, idiosyncratic definition of "notable" to do so. WP:DUE is often a good fallback (and, frankly, WP:V and WP:RS are more frequently useful as many careless editors don't even bother to provide a source). ElKevbo (talk) 23:42, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I really don't think it is necessary, but fine, I'll ask on WP:N. MrOllie (talk) 23:50, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I agree that your interpretation is a very common one. If one believes that Wikipedia policies and guidelines should be descriptive and not prescriptive then WP:N needs to be changed because it doesn't describe this really common practice (of limiting embedded lists of "Notable _" to entries that are each individually notable). I would personally support that change. ElKevbo (talk) 00:02, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Isn't this also a matter of BALANCE, DUE, and BLPNAME/PRIVACY, or even an extension of navboxes?
 * We discourage adding text that isn't DUE. Primary-sourced, non-independent info is rarely DUE outside of ABOUTSELF in articles actually on the subject.
 * We avoid naming people who are not notable if their names are not needed for clarity and/or are not widely reported in the context they're being mentioned.
 * Embedded lists of "notable people" function in practice similarly to non-comprehensive navboxes.
 * I think all of these support removing the non-notable name. JoelleJay (talk) 02:40, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the late response, but I've been traveling. My approach to lists, whether they be standalone or "Notable alumni" types of sections, is that (1) either than name has an article or (2) the name has cleary WP:BIO notability but doesn't have an article yet (e.g., an Olympic athelete); if there is no article yet, a reliable source must be included to associate the individual with the given list. I think JoelleJay already addressed the policy specifics quite well. OhNo itsJamie Talk 18:39, 24 July 2023 (UTC)