Thesis Component (30 Credit Units)

The thesis is an important component of the DBA programme. It is an independent piece of work that requires students to critically and rigorously examine a topic of practical interest in the field of business or management that is relevant to the profession.

Students undertaking the thesis must provide a report on their progress to their Qualifying Panel at least once per year.

The Panel must be satisfied that the work is being conducted independently by the candidate and has been undertaken substantially during the student's candidature.

Thesis must display a high level of intellectual accomplishment and innovation and must exhibit the following characteristics:

• It makes a substantial intellectual contribution to the candidate’s business (or organisation) or to the candidate's professional discipline; and
• It could be published in a mainstream professional or research journal.

The thesis should normally be at least 50,000 words in length.

DBA Knowledge Dissemination

• Research Topics of Some Current Students
• Thesis Topics of our DBA Graduates

Possible Research Areas

Our demonstrated strength and international competitiveness in some main research areas are listed below.

Research in accounting covers a broad spectrum of issues in the areas of financial accounting, auditing, and corporate governance. The major foci in the department include:

1. Corporate governance, auditing, external monitoring issues in the China, U.S., and cross-country or international settings as they relate to ownership structures, institutional infrastructures, legal regimes, information environments;
2. Accounting disclosure issues such as disclosure and audit quality, earnings management, accounting conservatism, voluntary disclosures or management earnings guidance, and audit pricing;
3. Emerging issues in accounting research such as the role of accounting disclosures and audit quality in the debt market or debt contracting, accounting standards harmonization and foreign investment flows, information flows along the supply chain, economic consequences of corporate tax avoidance, the impact of political connections on accounting quality, economic consequences of internal control reporting, accounting determinants of stock price crash risk, accounting quality versus credit quality, tax complexity and tax compliance.

Research expertise of the Department includes:

1. International Economics
   Trade policy; Intellectual property protection; FDI and global sourcing; International migration; International financial crises; Exchange rate misalignments; Purchasing power parity; Capital mobility; Globalization;
2. Microeconomics
   Game theory; Industrial organization; Energy and environmental economics; Contract theory; Political economy;
3. Macroeconomics
   Business cycles; Endogenous growth; Structural change; Fiscal and monetary policy; Real estate and urban economics;
4. Corporate Finance
   Capital structure; Payout policy; Capital raising; Real investment; Firm-bank relationship; Mergers and acquisitions; Restructuring; Hedging; Corporate governance and control;
5. Asset Pricing
   Equilibrium asset pricing; Equity returnrisk relationship; Term structure of interest rates; Derivatives pricing; Financial engineering;
6. Investments and Capital Markets
   Financial investments; Market microstructure; Anomalies; International financial management; Financial services and intermediation; Fund management; Credit risk management.

Research in Information Systems (IS) integrates technical and behavioural perspectives in addressing the effective and efficient use of information technology. In this sense, IS deals with aspects of the creation of information systems as well as evaluation in a variety of business, government and societal contexts. Methodologies employed in IS research accordingly cover a broad range from technical to behavioural (both qualitative and quantitative). The College of Business areas of research expertise in Knowledge Management as well as E-Business and Internet Marketing are especially germane to IS. Knowledge Management topics include aspects of design and evaluation of technological support for creation and use of knowledge. EBusiness and Internet Marketing deals mainly with business models, processes and systems enabled by Web-based technologies. IS research is especially concerned with socio-technical issues surrounding the application of web-based technologies in business and organizations for improving efficiency, effectiveness, and competitiveness.

Research foci/expertise in the Department include:

1. Human Resources Management
   Chinese Human Resource Management; Recruitment & Selection; Training & Development; Selection and Assessment;
2. Organizational Behaviour
   Organization Theory; Organizational Change; Sociology of Work; Organizational Justice; Coaching; Conflict Resolution and negotiation, Leadership; Risk & Uncertainty; Social Constructionism; Business Ethics; job attitudes; virtual teams;
3. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management
   New Product Management; New Product Forecasting; Innovation & Creativity; entrepreneurship;
4. International Business
   International Management; International Organizational Behaviour; MNC Control and Staffing; international alliances; Intercultural Communication; Comparative Management; Japanese management practices; Culture and cognition, Psychology of biculturals, Cross-Cultural Research Methods;
5. Strategic Management
   Strategic Management; Strategic Management of Financial Resources; Competitive & Cooperative Strategy; Decision-making; Strategy and Policy; Corporate Governance and Political Strategy in Transitional Economies (China); Mergers and acquisitions (M&A);
6. Corporate Social Responsibility
   Business Ethics; Stakeholder Management; Corporate Social Responsibility.

Research expertise in the Department can be grouped into two streams:

1. Operations and supply chain management in a broad sense, which ranges from very theory oriented research such as optimization, game theory, robust optimization, and simulation, to more applied research such as inventory control, financial engineering, sustainability, planning and scheduling, and interdisciplinary research between operations and marketing/finance/accounting;
2. Business statistics in a broad sense, which includes business intelligence, quality management, survival analysis, statistical modeling, robust estimation, market research, and econometrics.

Research foci/expertise in the Department include:

1. Business Markets
   Forming channel relationships, governance strategy between buyers and suppliers, and application of network theory on business relationships;
2. Multinational Corporate Strategy and Strategic Marketing
   International strategic alliance, foreign direct investment in China, international HRM, global sourcing strategy, eyquitcontrol and organizational learning;
3. Internet Marketing
   Online consumer behavior, online advertising, social media, and online retailing;
4. China Marketing and Chinese Culture
   Dao De Jing, branding;
5. Cultural Influences on Consumer Behaviors
   How consumers from different cultures behave differently;
6. Consumer Socialization
   How socialization shapes consumer behaviors.