Doctorate in Business Administration

The student-researcher preparing a DBA prepares for his professional integration. To this end, the CV, the cover letter and the anticipation of the interview are essential. The student researcher will be trained in both the steps and methods of classic recruitment and informal spontaneous applications through their professional network, which they must learn to build.

The aim of research is to construct new knowledge. It is true. However, before any field investigation, any analytical observation, it is essential, in any field and any discipline, to measure the extent and richness of the work carried out by one's predecessors. In this module, it is about reading and annotating, compiling, problematizing, with regard to and critical understanding of theoretical knowledge, studies, works, essays, appreciated as essential and included in the classic knowledge of a subject.

Carrying out a scientific literature review, like writing the state of the art, is a preliminary step to carrying out research. The well-known bibliography is a mandatory element in any research work. But we must not forget that it must meet different canons depending on the disciplines. In Economic Sciences, for example, references are made according to the Harvard format, etc. Reading research work relating to one's own subject is particularly educational with a view to building one's knowledge, know-how and interpersonal skills for a young researcher. 

Touches an essential element which, if it provokes reflection, should allow the student-researcher to integrate with greater confidence, and other skills, into the professional world(s). The young student-researcher must be able to master four major progressive difficulties:  

-Adapt to the codes of the business world, different from those of University, by learning in particular how to present your career path to recruiters. Which is not an easy thing as the job market, and the supply, often carry negative preconceptions, reluctant to the idea of hiring a student-researcher profile. It is important to understand the causes and adapt to the valued skills. 

-Present your research subject, demonstrate the needs it offers to the business world, and how it constitutes a competitive advantage. All this knowledge must therefore be learned. It is a question of presenting the professional thesis, through in-depth analyzes and envisaged hypotheses, not only as an essential step in a professional career, but above all as a set of concrete professional experiences, a global, sharp, technical and transversal reflection, in the short and long term, brought to the life of a company and its sector. 

-Objectifying a management position means for the student-researcher to identify the difficulties of management, the daily management of teamwork, the confrontation of the human with the financial; the confrontation of law with practice, permanent adaptation. Developing technical skills is necessary for managers, but they must also learn to manage.

-Evolving in the company today, building a career, very often involves working relationships that transcend borders, in which intercultural management becomes essential, in which digitalization transforms everyday practices, and where, constantly, tirelessly, management must understand and adapt.

Here are the main concepts that will be treated and repeated within the framework of the human resources module: adaptation, motivation, recruitment, communication... from the perspective of labor law, labor economics, management and management sciences, but also social sciences and game theory. 

Talking about the job that interests you means first of all taking formality in answering these redundant questions, which those around you and your various first interviews will never stop asking you: “Why this job? Why this sector?”

Thinking about your job, more precisely – and more seriously – is above all presenting a company; it’s thinking about your job in the past (What studies or what training? What experiences?)  then, in the present (agree on successes and achievements, reveal failures or difficulties). Finally, and above all, it means thinking about your job in the future, because, be careful! This is not a general presentation of the profession or a sector of activity but of your reflection on this profession or the sector of activity in which it falls. The prospects for financial, human, technical, technological development... or more simply on the possibilities, linked to a claimed well-being, of landing this job in a desired environment. You don't choose your profession just for the money, so thinking about what you will bring to the development of your profession is important. These skills assessments and evolving analyzes are built from the first work carried out in class. 

The problem is announced. It is not just a matter of presenting a project, but of thinking about the difficulties, the feasibility (the possibility), the strategic steps. We must therefore ask ourselves how such and such elements have become negligible or essential to the success of the professional project. The problem is constructed from your reflections developed during the lessons. Its answers are found in the field, provided by methodological observation. 

In order to develop the skills necessary for successful team work, a collaborative project is set up. Student researchers organize themselves completely independently in order to form teams, define the project and organize the work. Many companies in innovative sectors operate according to the adhocracy model defined by Henri Mintzberg. Like small multidisciplinary teams coordinated by a project manager and in which the specialist in the field makes decisions in agreement with the others. This collaborative project must mobilize the skills and network of each member of the team and rely on the technical elements taught in the other modules. The defense corresponds to a 30-minute presentation by the entire group, followed by 30 minutes of questions asked by the members of the jury.