The Olin Business School Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree program offers a collaborative atmosphere centered on industry-relevant applied research in finance, marketing or supply chain, operations, and technology. This advanced graduate program crosses traditional boundaries and provides students with the opportunity — under the guidance of Washington University faculty — for structured course work along with focused independent scholarly reading and research on important issues relating to business.

The Olin DBA program is a 72-credit-unit doctoral degree designed for individuals with a serious interest in finance, marketing, or supply chain and operations-related research who wish to pursue graduate study on either a part-time or full-time basis. A DBA is an advanced graduate degree that differs from a traditional PhD and extends beyond the fundamental foundation of a master's degree to develop the necessary skills to conduct applied research. A DBA differs from a master's degree and a PhD in a number of ways, including the scope of study, the approach to research, and essentially the definitive outcome.

The Olin DBA is a practitioner's doctoral degree designed to meet the needs of the researching professional rather than the professional researcher. While a PhD is intended for those who wish to pursue research careers in academia, a DBA involves extended graduate study beyond a master's degree for those who wish to pursue careers in corporations, consulting firms or government agencies that can benefit from advanced research skills for the analysis of business problems. The research capabilities developed in the DBA programs for finance and marketing are of a more applied nature, with more immediate real-world applicability than the typical research pursued in a PhD program. Unlike a PhD program, the DBA program is aimed at those who are working in industry and who may continue to work during their enrollment in the program.

Contact Info

Contact:	Jessica Hatch
Phone:	314-935-6340
Email:	jessica.hatch@wustl.edu
Website:	https://olin.wustl.edu/EN-US/academic-programs/dba-in-finance/Pages/default.aspx

The completion of the DBA program requires 72 credit units of graduate course work. In addition, DBA students must maintain satisfactory academic progress; pass examinations and paper requirements; and write, submit and defend a doctoral thesis. All students are expected to finish the program within four years on a full-time basis or within five to six years on a part-time basis.

Required studies include course work and a written doctoral thesis as follows:

• 48 credit units for course work
• 24 credit units for a doctoral thesis

Qualifying Exams

Comprehensive field examinations should be completed within six months of the conclusion of required course work (normally within two to three years). The examination committee will be composed of the faculty advisor and two other faculty members.

Doctoral Thesis

After completing 48 units of DBA course work and passing the qualifying exams, the student will begin research for their doctoral thesis. A DBA student will prepare their thesis proposal in consultation with their faculty advisor and with the approval of the research advisory committee and the program director. The completed doctoral thesis will be defended in an oral presentation to the advisory committee. The committee will assign either a passing grade or a failing grade, or they may ask for revisions to be made so that the student may receive a passing grade.

DBA in Finance

The curriculum includes foundation courses, required courses, and elective courses.

Foundation Courses (6 units)

Depending on their academic background, students may be required to enroll in one or more foundation courses on entering the DBA in Finance program. Credits for these courses are not applied toward the DBA degree. The three foundation courses, which are offered in August, are as follows:

Course List

Code	Title	Units
ACCT 560	Introduction to Financial Accounting	2
ACCT 562	Intermediate Accounting	2
FIN 510	Introduction to Finance	2
Total Units		6

The required courses provide the student with basic knowledge in all major aspects of finance: investment and asset-pricing of equity, fixed income, and derivatives; corporate finance (valuation and financing); and financial intermediation. The required courses also provide basic knowledge in microeconomics, financial statement analysis, and statistical and empirical methods.

Required Courses (27 units)

Course List

Code	Title	Units
ACCT 503	Business Analysis - Financial Statements	1.5
ACCT 503B	Advanced Business Analysis - Financial Statements	1.5
FIN 521	Financial Intermediation	1.5
FIN 524	Options & Futures	1.5
FIN 525	Fixed-Income Securities	1.5
FIN 532	Investment Theory	1.5
FIN 534	Advanced Corporate Finance I - Valuation	1.5
FIN 534B	Advanced Corporate Finance II - Financing	1.5
FIN 560A	Research Methods in Finance	3
MEC 537	Data Analysis Forecasting & Risk Analysis	3
MEC 5400	Managerial Economics	3
MEC 5410	Managerial Statistics (or equivalent)	2
	Directed Reading in Finance	3
HRM 660	Seminar in Presentation Skills	1
Total Units		27

Elective Courses (minimum 21 units)

Course List

Code	Title	Units
FIN 500J	Mathematical Foundations for Finance	1.5
FIN 500P	Computer Programming for Quantitative Finance	3
FIN 500Q	Risk Management	3
FIN 500R	Topics in Quantitative Finance	3
FIN 523B	Mergers & Acquisitions	1.5
FIN 524B	Derivative Securities	1.5
FIN 527	Financial Markets	1.5
FIN 530	International Finance	1.5
FIN 532B	Data Analysis for Investments	1.5
FIN 533	Real Option Valuation	1.5
FIN 534C	Advanced Corporate Finance III - Frontiers of Valuation	1.5
FIN 537	Advanced Derivative Securities	3
FIN 538	Stochastic Foundations for Finance	1.5
FIN 539	Mathematical Finance	3
FIN 549H	Special Topics: Real Estate Finance	1.5
FIN 550	Numerical Methods and Optimization in Finance	1.5
FIN 551	Advanced Fixed Income and Credit-Risk Modeling	1.5
FIN 552	Fixed-Income Derivatives	1.5
FIN 648	Independent Study	3
MEC 540	Money, Capital Markets & Economics Growth	1.5

Students may take any other graduate-level (500 and above) course as an elective with the approval of the Doctoral Programs Office and the course instructor.

DBA in Marketing

Quantitative Track

Required Courses (28 units)

Course List

Code	Title	Units
MKT 500S	Predictive Analytics for Business Decision-Making	3
MKT 500T	Customer Analytics Using Probability Models	3
MKT 555	Analytics-Driven Brand Management	1.5
MKT 555A	Data Analysis for Brand Management	1.5
MKT 571A	Market Research	1.5
MKT 571B	Advanced Marketing Research	1.5
MKT 577	Marketing Strategy	3
MKT 670	Seminar in Marketing Management	3
MKT 679	Directed Readings in Marketing (3 credit units, taken twice)	6
MGT 620	Empirical Methods in Business (first part of a two-year sequence)	3
HRM 660	Seminar in Presentation Skills	1
Total Units		28

Depending on their knowledge of quantitative methods in marketing, students may request to replace the above required courses with more advanced graduate-level courses. Faculty approval is required.

Elective Courses (minimum 20 units)

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Econ 5121	Advanced Quantitative Methods in Economics	3
Econ 5161	Applied Econometrics	3
Math 420	Experimental Design	3
MEC 625	Industrial Organization I	3
MEC 626	Industrial Organization II	3
MEC 661	Analysis of Time Series Data	3
MEC 670	Seminar in Econometrics	3
MGT 620	Empirical Methods in Business (second part of the two-year sequence)	3
MKT 601	Consumer Behavior I	1.5
MKT 602	Consumer Behavior II	1.5
MKT 673	Analytical Modeling in Marketing	1.5
MKT 674	Judgement and Decision Making	1.5
MKT 675	Empirical Methods in Structural Modeling	1.5
MKT 678	Independent Study in Marketing	Variable credit
MKT 679	Directed Readings in Marketing	3
Pol Sci 581	Causal Inference	3

Students may take other graduate-level (500 and above) courses as electives with the approval of the faculty and the instructors of the specific courses.

Consumer Behavior Track

Required Courses (20.5 units)

Course List

Code	Title	Units
MKT 601	Consumer Behavior I	1.5
MKT 602	Consumer Behavior II	1.5
MKT 576A	Understanding and Influencing Consumer Behavior	1.5
MKT 571A	Marketing Research	1.5
MKT 571B	Advanced Marketing Research	1.5
MKT 679	Directed Readings in Marketing (3 credit units, taken twice)	6
Psych 5066	Quantitative Methods I	3
Psych 5067	Quantitative Methods II	3
HRM 660	Seminar in Presentation Skills	1
Total Units		20.5

Depending on their knowledge of quantitative methods in marketing, students may request to replace the above required courses with more advanced graduate-level courses. Faculty approval is required.

Elective Courses (minimum 27.5 units)

Course List

Code	Title	Units
Drama 214	Public Speaking: Embodied Communication	3
MGT 201	Management Communication	4
MGT 533	Effective Managerial Communication	1.5
MKT 500U	Digital Marketing and Customer Analytics	1.5
MKT 520	Creating and Building Brand Equity	1.5
MKT 558A	Pricing Strategies	1.5
MKT 559A	New Product Development I	1.5
MKT 559B	New Product Development II	1.5
MKT 577	Marketing Strategy	3
MKT 647	Judgement and Decision Making	1.5
MKT 678	Independent Study in Marketing	Variable credit
Psych 5011	Research Designs and Methods	3
Psych 5012	Selected Topics in Design and Statistics	3
Psych 503	Seminar: Experimental Social Psychology	3
Psych 5087	Advanced Cognitive Psychology	3
Psych 5093	Imagery and Memory	3
Psych 516	Applied Multivariate Analysis	3
Psych 5453	Introduction to Affective Science	3
Psych 5832	Personality and the Self	3
Psych 5955	Memory, Emotion, and Attitudes	3
Psych 5958	Emotion Regulation	3
Psych 5991	Social Cognition	3

Students may take other graduate-level (500 and above) courses as electives with the approval of the faculty and the instructors of the specific courses.

DBA in Operations

Required Courses (48 units)

Course List

Code	Title	Units
MGT 620	Empirical Methods in Business (second part of two-year sequence)	3
SCOT 500D	Project Management	3
SCOT 500E	Supply Chain Risk Management	1.5
SCOT 531	Supply Chain Finance	1.5
SCOT 554	Operations Analytics	3
SCOT 558	Advanced Operations Strategy	3
SCOT 561	Data Science for Supply Chain Management	3
SCOT 5704	Operations Management	3
SCOT 576	Foundations of Supply Chain Management	1.5
SCOT 577	IT & Supply Chain Management	1.5
SCOT 600A	Optimization Theory and Applications	3
SCOT 600B	Stochastic Processes	3
SCOT 600C	Translating Research To Management Practice	3
SCOT 652	Theory and Research Methods in Inventory and Supply Chain Management	3
SCOT 653	Stochastic Models for Production and Service Systems	3
SCOT 654	Inventory & Supply Chain Management	3
SCOT 657	Research Topics & Engineering Themes in Supply Chain & Revenue Mgt	3
SCOT 684	Independent Study	3
Total Units		48

Students may take other graduate-level (500 and above) courses as electives with the approval of the faculty and the instructors of the specific courses.