Executive Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA)

Dernière mise à jour : le 14/01/2026

Objective

The Executive Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) allows participants to address genuine managerial questions of strategic interest for their organization and provide operational answers. By comparing ideas from an epistemological, methodological, and empirical perspective, this DBA program encourages participants to exchange, debate, and reflect to further their thoughts and knowledge.

It also strives to help participants gain knowledge of the world of academic research to make the connection between professional practice and the latest developments in academic research. A thesis validates an Executive DBA.

Duration and content of the program

The duration of the program is 3 years. The program is compatible with a full-time professional activity. 

• 6 hours of tutoring will complete these seminars the first year
• Participants must submit a research article and/or a working paper and defend it at the end of the first year.
• Throughout years 2 and 3 of the DBA, participants will be personally supervised by one or two research professors until they defend their thesis.
• The thesis defense will take place at the end of the third year.

Who is this program for?

This program is for highly-qualified business leaders with high potential, working in all areas of management and organizations:

• Chief Executive Officers and Managing Directors
• Managers of private and state sector organizations (Chief Financial Officers, etc.)
• Engineers (with previous training in management)
• Business consultants and independent experts (lawyers, chartered accountants, etc.)
• Teachers and lecturers in business schools without a PhD, etc.

Administrative documents

To apply for the Executive DBA, you must :

• Have a master's degree or equivalent
• Have a minimum of 8-10 years of professional experience
• Submit a research proposal of 2-3 pages knowledge of English in a professional environment (reading and writing)

Tuition fees

• The first year of the Executive DBA will be validated by a University Diploma in Research of Management Sciences* (DU Recherche en Sciences de Gestion). The cost is €2500.
• The cost for years 2 and 3 of the DBA program is €6,500, or €3,250 per year. A University Diploma will validate the Executive DBA from the University of Bordeaux after a successful defense of the thesis.
• The total cost of the DBA: €9,000.

*At the end of the first year of the DBA, validated by the University Diploma in Research of Management Sciences (DU Recherche en Sciences de la Gestion), participants who are passionate about academic research and who have demonstrated their ability to engage in top-level research may apply, under certain conditions, to the doctoral school to prepare a Ph.D. in Management Science.

international partners OF THE DBA program

IAE Bordeaux offers the Executive Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) with the partnership of IIE Consortium (Brazil, etc.) & New Confucian Entrepreneur Academy ( NCEA) from Jio-Tong University (Shanghai, China)

Our DBA program has a professional focus and differs from a classical PhD in some points. One of the major advantages is that instead of having to do a doctoral program in the research field of interest of the University professor, the doctorate students can choose the topic of interest in the management field and professors will help with their knowledge and expertise along with the student professional experience in his field, to produce a high quality and useful research.