New Meridian University · School of Business Administration
School of Business Administration
Five doctoral specializations for the people who own the enterprise’s numbers — projects, people, systems, strategy, and the leadership above them all.
The tightest labor market in the economy
Management work is being created faster than trusted managers — and trust, the research says, is exactly what the pipeline is losing.
Start with the BLS arithmetic: about 1.1 million management openings a year, a median wage of $126,520 — two and a half times the all-occupation average — and no sign the demand curve bends. Then read the warning underneath it: DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast finds only 40 percent of leaders still rate their own organization’s leadership bench as high quality, a 17-point collapse in two years. The economy is not short of people with management titles. It is short of people it trusts to manage.
This school exists to produce the difference — deliberately. Its five specializations map the enterprise: Project Management for the work, Human Resource Management for the people, Information Technology Management for the systems, General Business for the generalist who spans them, and Leadership for the layer above. Each is a research doctorate: 60 credit hours, 100% online, one to two years, ending in a dissertation on a problem from your own enterprise — evidence where the organization has only ever had instinct.
The five specializations
Ph.D. / DBA
Research doctorates across every function of the enterprise — each one built for a working executive.
Project Management
Nearly the entire global economy now runs on projectized work. Learn to lead it with evidence — and to train the generation who follows.Explore the specialization →
Human Resource Management
A trillion dollars a year walks out the door with departing employees. Manage the enterprise’s largest investment like one.Explore the specialization →
Information Technology Management
The fastest-growing occupational group in the economy needs executives who read an architecture diagram and a balance sheet with equal fluency.Explore the specialization →
General Business
Research fluency across every function — the deliberate build for the future general executive.Explore the specialization →
Leadership
Only 20% of the world’s employees are engaged at work. Become the leader who moves that number — with evidence.Explore the specialization →
The path every specialization shares
Five gates between admission and the title — the same five for every specialization in the school:
The coursework
Sixty credit hours online, paced around a full-time career.
The Candidacy Qualifying Exam
Command of the field and the research methods, confirmed in one sitting.
The dissertation proposal
Your question, defended before your committee before a word is written.
The ethics review
New Meridian’s registered IRB keeps the research publishable and credible.
The final defense
Your findings, your committee, and the conversation that ends with the title.
The school at a glance
| Structure | What it means |
|---|---|
| Degrees | Ph.D. (scholarly track) or DBA (applied track) |
| Credits | 60 credit hours |
| Format | 100% online and asynchronous — no campus requirement |
| Time to completion | 1–2 years, paced around a full-time career |
| Dissertation | Original research on a problem from your own enterprise, IRB-approved |
Questions, answered
Can I finish while working full-time?
Yes — every specialization in the school is 100% online and asynchronous with no fixed class hours, and most students complete the 60 credit hours in one to two years without pausing their careers.
Ph.D. or DBA?
The Ph.D. is the scholarly research track; the DBA is the applied, executive-practice track. The coursework is largely shared, so you can settle the choice with your advisor once you see where your dissertation question pulls.
How do I choose a specialization?
Start from the dissertation: which problem from your own career would you still want to be thinking about in year two? Faculty advise from admission onward, and the early coursework is shared enough to refine the choice before the proposal.
Ready to lead with evidence?
Explore the specializations, then speak with faculty about your path from application to defense.