Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Business Administration - Accounting

The PhD Program in Business Administration at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business prepares candidates for research and teaching careers at leading educational institutions and for careers where advanced research and analytical capabilities are required. The PhD program places major emphasis on independent inquiry, on the development of competence in research methodology, and on the communication of research results. Students are introduced at the outset of the program not only to rigorous coursework, but also to the research activities of the faculty and of other students. A ratio of doctoral students-in-residence to faculty of less than one-to-one facilitates this opportunity to work closely with faculty. The PhD program usually requires four to six years of work, with an average of roughly five years. The student and the faculty in his/her area determine the specific program of study in accordance with each student's goals and interests. Each student is required to gain expertise in an area of special interest via coursework or independent study and to take a comprehensive exam in this area, usually during the second or third year of residence. The final requirement is the presentation of a dissertation. The PhD program offers programs of research and training in the areas of accounting, decision sciences, finance, marketing, management, operations management, and strategy. The Fuqua School of Business policy is to provide stipends, tuition and registration, and health fees for all new PhD students. The school provides tuition, registration, and health fees throughout the program and provides stipend support for ten semesters, as long as the student continues to make satisfactory progress toward the PhD. Accounting involves the creation and use of information within and outside organizations. Accounting research investigates questions about how information is gathered, organized and used by individuals and by markets, and encompasses managerial accounting issues, assurance (auditing) issues, taxation issues and financial accounting/reporting issues. The Ph.D. program in accounting is designed to prepare students for careers in research and teaching at leading academic institutions. Training consists of coursework, research seminars, joint work with faculty on research projects, and individual, original research including a thesis. Our goal is not only to provide doctoral candidates with skills and tools for conducting scholarly research, but also to impress on students the desire and ability to think conceptually, carefully and creatively about accounting issues. The frameworks used in accounting research vary depending on the specific focus of the research and the orientation of the researcher, and include empirical-archival approaches (which rely primarily on historical data and statistical techniques), analytical methods (which seek to model one or more phenomena in a stylized setting), behavioral approaches (which rely primarily on psychological theories to derive testable predictions about individual and group behavior), and experimental-markets approaches (which create economic settings in controlled laboratory market environments). As part of their training, doctoral students would be exposed to research using each of these frameworks.