The Ph.D. in Business Administration offers seven tracks: Accounting, Finance, Management, Management Information Studies, Marketing, Real Estate, and Risk Management and Insurance.
The Ph.D. degree in the Tull School of Accounting is designed to prepare students to conduct scholarly research in accounting and to eventually take positions at other research universities. The program is individually planned with each student by his/her major professor and advisory committee. The student and the committee evaluate previous work and designate sufficient coursework to provide the necessary proficiency to do research and teach in the chosen field of specialization.
The PhD in Business Administration with a focus in Finance prepares students for careers in research and teaching in academic or government research institutions. The program provides a strong foundation in financial and economic theory and the methodological skills needed to execute research projects. Graduates come to understand the fundamental concepts of finance, the workings of financial markets and financial intermediaries, and corporate financial decision-making. Faculty members work closely with PhD students and provide a stimulating intellectual environment that fosters collaboration. Graduates are placed at major research and teaching universities in the U.S. and overseas as well as in finance positions in private and public sector organizations.
A primary objective of the management emphasis in business administration is to help you develop the perspective, skills, and knowledge that you will need to manage and lead the modern organization more effectively. What makes the life of a manager so interesting is that it requires you to address such a wide variety of problems – financial, material, human, legal, political, and environmental – almost every day. No other career can provide you with such a rich mixture of challenges.
The Ph.D. program in Management is designed to develop qualified scholars who will excel in research and teaching positions at major universities and colleges. Within the department, students may specialize in organizational behavior or strategic management. Each student works with an advisor and a committee to create an appropriate academic program. As part of their program, students are expected to be actively involved with faculty mentors in teaching and conducting research leading to professional presentations and publications.
One of the oldest Information Systems (IS) PhD programs in the world, the PhD in MIS is a four-to-five-year program consistently ranked among the best IS PhD programs globally. It provides flexibility to pursue individual research interests while ensuring a strong foundation in conceptual and methodological skills. The PhD in MIS is problem-focused, addressing significant business and societal issues, grounded in theory, and inclusive of diverse research methodologies including econometrics, psychometrics, computational, and qualitative methods. Our faculty is intellectually diverse and spans all IS traditions (behavioral, organizational, economics of IS, design science, data science, and computational). With expert faculty in a wide range of enduring and cutting-edge topics, theories, and methods, students are afforded the opportunity to explore diverse research topics from multiple perspectives.
The PhD program in Marketing is described as academic research in marketing. Research is generally classified as belonging to one of three broad categories, two of which are particularly relevant to the Terry Marketing PhD program and represent substantive areas of interest: (1) consumer behavior, and (2) marketing strategy / quant. (Students will be familiarized with the third category – analytic modeling – but it is not a focal area of inquiry at Terry.) PhD students generally work in one of these two areas: Consumer behavior (CB) research focuses on the study of individual consumers to better understand their behaviors (e.g., purchase choices), attitudes, and emotions. Theoretically, CB research draws heavily on cognitive and social psychology, although other lenses (e.g., sociology, anthropology) are sometimes used. Laboratory and field experiments are the primary methodological tools used by CB researchers.
Marketing strategy / quant research focuses on firm and manager behavior, and can encompass a broad range of topics that include identifying firm marketing capabilities and resources (e.g., brands, consumer relationships, sales forces), examining organizational culture, or understanding the network of relationships that exist between suppliers and customers. Such research studies managerial decisions and their impact on brand, business unit, customer, firm, and sales force and salesperson performance. The methods employed by strategy / quant researchers are relatively diverse, and include use of archival data, surveys, web scraping, panels and experiments. Marketing strategy / quant research draws on foundational disciplines such as economics, management strategy, and statistics.
The PhD in Business Administration with a focus in Real Estate is designed to prepare students for teaching and research at universities and colleges and for positions in government and business. The PhD in Real Estate emphasizes intensive training in real estate, economics, quantitative methods, and finance with the goal of producing research-minded PhD graduates, while at the same time providing a comprehensive teaching experience. Students are encouraged to individualize their programs by supplementing their studies with courses from other Terry programs.
The PhD in Business Administration with a focus on Risk Management and Insurance (RMI) is designed to help students develop an understanding of both theoretical and applied aspects of insurance, risk management and employee benefits. The Terry College provides an excellent opportunity for those interested in pursuing a PhD in risk management and insurance. Some of the benefits of the Terry College include:
Consistently highly ranked, the UGA RMI program is currently the top-ranked program in the country by U.S. News & World Report. A recent global study ranked the UGA RMI program among the top 10 universities in the world – and second among public universities — for the impact of its risk management and insurance research. Faculty members are among the top publishers in the premier risk management and insurance journal, the Journal of Risk and Insurance. View our departmental directory for a complete list of the faculty. RMI faculty have received numerous research awards from the Journal of Risk and Insurance, Risk Management and Insurance Review, Journal of Insurance Issues, the Journal of Insurance Regulation and others.
Frank Heflin Frank.heflin@uga.edu 706.542.3501
Director of Graduate Studies Gregory Eaton geaton@uga.edu Department of Finance Administrative Associate II Vivian Brookshire Vivian.brookshire@uga.edu 706.542.4450 https://www.terry.uga.edu/phd/finance/
Director of Graduate Studies Jessica Rodell, jrodell@uga.edu MGMT Dept. Administrative Associate/Graduate Program Administrator: Leah Schettler, lgroner@uga.edu https://www.terry.uga.edu/phd/management/
Dr. Elena Karahanna ekarah@uga.edu
Director of Graduate Studies Anindita Chakravarty achakra@uga.edu
Director of Graduate Studies Jim Conklin Jnc152@uga.edu 706-542-4223
David Eckles deckles@uga.edu 7065432578