The UIC PhD in Business Administration with an area of emphasis in Human Resource Management(HRM) provides its students with the opportunity to explore a variety of topics within the disciplines of HRM and Organizational Behavior (OB). Our doctoral program places primary emphasis on the development of OB and HR students who are well versed in contemporary research and to communicate their work as educators and published experts in their fields. Students in the doctoral program are required to commit full-time attention to our program; part-time enrollment is not allowed. Completion of the program requires a full-time commitment for 4-5 years.
Minimum Semester Hours Required: 96 from the baccalaureate, 64 from the MBA
Course Work: Two-course requirement in mathematics, statistics, or computing; a four-course breadth requirement (four MBA core courses, no two of which are from the same functional area and none of which is from the area of inquiry); and a six-course depth requirement (advanced courses, at least two of which are sufficiently rigorous to provide the basis for the qualifying exam). Following the qualifying exam, additional course requirements are determined by the student’s adviser.
Qualifying Examination: A written exam, based upon courses used for the student’s depth requirement, is required and will be administered by faculty in the student’s area of inquiry.
Preliminary Examination: A written and/or oral exam, addressing advanced material in the area of inquiry and/or the student’s plans for dissertation research, is required.
Dissertation: The PhD dissertation is the capstone of our doctoral education program, and is pursued after successful completion of the preliminary exam. The dissertation signifies individual competence as a researcher, and, as a public document, represents the researcher to his or her professional peers.
For a full list of both degree and admissions requirements, please visit the UIC Catalog.
Small and Interactive
We keep the size of our program small so that we can provide a highly customized program with extensive student-faculty interaction. This means that we only admit 1-3 new students per year, with a total of 8-12 students in our program at any point in time. Although our minimum GMAT requirement is 550, the average GMAT of incoming students over the past 8 years has been 690. We also consider grades and courses taken as well as the quality of schools attended for undergraduate and master’s degrees. Finally, we consider applicant research interests relative to the expertise of our faculty. Although most of our applicants have master’s degrees, it is not required to have a master’s degree in order to be considered for our doctoral program.
Strong Research Focus
Our program is highly focused on research. Students are required to take seminars on OB, HR, research methods, statistics and electives from our department as well as other departments on campus, such as psychology, sociology and educational psychology.
PhD Research Partnerships with Faculty
We have developed a strong research culture, with students working with faculty and/or other students on numerous research projects. Nearly all of our students graduate with several peer-reviewed journal publications to their credit.
International Recognition
Our program is highly visible internationally. Robert Liden is the former president of the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management. Professor Sandy Wayne served recently as president of the Human Resource Management Division of the AOM and is now an acting representative on the AOM Board of Governors.
2017
Junfeng Wu, University of Texas at Dallas
2016
Courtney Masterson University of San Francisco
Jeremy Meuser, Texas Tech University
Haesang Park, Tulane University
2015
Aarn Cao, Renmin University
2014
Chenwei Liao, Michigan State University
2013
Dayo Akinlade, PhD '13, St. Xavier University
Morgan Wilson, Mount St. Mary's University
2012
Jasmine Hu, University of Notre Dame
2011
Smriti Anand, Illinois Institute of Technology
Grace Lemmon, DePaul University
2009
Brian Glibkowski, Stonehill College, Mass.
David Henderson, Cass School of Business, London
Prajya Vidyarthi, University of Texas-El Paso
2008
Anjali Chaudhry, Dominican University, Chicago
2006
Hao Zhou, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Selena Yuan, Foresight International, Inc.
Jesus Bravo, Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus
2005
Monica Gavino, St. Xavier University
Gary Vanderlinden, Geminus Corp.
2004
George Meier, Robert Morris College
Peter Thompson, UIC
Patrick Murphy, DePaul University
2003
Andy Klein, DeVry University
2002
Karen Anderson, Robert Morris College
Lisa Bradway, Texas A & M
Berrin Erdogan, Portland State University
1999
Maria Kraimer, University of Iowa
1998
Ray Sparrowe, Washington University
Chris Leeds, Dominican University of California
Rob Singh, Morgan State University
Marjolijn Van der Velde, Davenport University
1997
Susan Murphy, California Lutheran University
Ken Weidner, Saint Joseph's University (Pennsylvania)
1995
Janet Szumal, Human Synergistics
1994
Ralph Masi, Pentagon
Learn more about our program through our current students. Read about their backgrounds and see their current research interests. Click here to see all of our current doctoral students.