School of Business
Research Programmes
Degrees Offered
The NUS Business School offers a rigorous, full-time Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programme in selected areas of business administration. The programme is designed for local and international students who are keen to become management scholars and pursue academic careers.
The research degree programme provides training in a subject area through independent investigations, studies and experiments, culminating in the preparation of a thesis. Candidates are also required to complete appropriate courses.
Curriculum Structure & Degree Requirements
Graduation Requirements
Candidates of the PhD Programme need to successfully complete a minimum of 40 Units (previously termed as Module Credits (MC)) and meet a minimum Grade Point Average (GPA) of 3.5 to graduate (previously termed as Cumulative Average Points (CAP)).
Year 1 and 2: Coursework, Summer Paper and Qualifying Examination
Coursework: PhD students take a total of 10-12 doctoral level courses (previously termed as modules). Each Departmental PhD coordinator sets the number of required courses for their respective programmes i.e. 10-12 approved courses with a minimum total of 40 units. Some of these courses are core courses conducted by the department. The remaining courses are electives conducted in other departments or faculties. For instance, students frequently take their electives in statistics, economics, sociology, psychology, computer science and industrial engineering.
Summer Paper: To help the PhD students kick-start their research early, a summer paper requirement will be introduced into the programme. All first-year students (starting from the AY06/07 cohort) will be required to submit a summer paper at the end of their study in Year 1.
Qualifying Examination: After finishing their coursework, students take a qualifying examination, usually at the end of the second year. A qualifying examination is a comprehensive test of the student’s knowledge of the field and is made up of paper(s) set by the department. Passing the qualifying examination is the signal for the student to embark on the dissertation.
Year 3: Proposal Defense: After clearing the qualifying examination, the doctoral student begins to put together a proposal for the thesis. The proposal is an original idea for investigation put forth by the candidate, after an extensive study of the topic. The student is expected to detail the research question and also provide an outline of the study design. The proposal needs to be defended before the thesis committee and internal examiners.
Year 4: The Dissertation: The doctoral candidate begins the final leg of the dissertation following the successful proposal defense. The dissertation is finally evaluated by internal examiners. Following this examination, there is an oral defense of the thesis before final submission. The PhD is awarded when the candidate meets all the requirements of the programme and the dissertation is certified for passing by the examiners.
For further details, please refer to https://bschool.nus.edu.sg/phd/.
Other Information: Financial Assistance and Awards
For a list of financial assistance, kindly refer to the following web pages: