Narrow Down Your List of Potential PhD Programs by Reviewing Academic Journals

In addition to examining a school's accreditation, exploring academic journals by discipline also can help narrow down a list of schools that likely have high-quality doctoral programs in your area of interest. For example, if you are interested in pursuing a PhD in management, look through top management journals. Take notes of article authors and the schools they are from. Then, explore their research backgrounds. Are these authors well-known in their fields? What kinds of topics have they researched? Are they recognized as specialists in any one area (such as organizational design, leadership, employee morale, etc.)? Are any of these specialized areas subjects that you are passionate about researching?

Once you have a list of authors and schools, find out if the institution offers a PhD program and if the researcher mentors doctoral students. Your goal is to learn from the best in your field. The better your doctoral mentor, the better your research skills will be when you graduate. 

Here are a list of well-known academic journals to get you started:

Accounting

• Accounting and Business Research
• Accounting Educators' Journal
• Journal of Accounting Research
• Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking
• Securities Regulation Law Journal

Decision Sciences

• Decision Sciences Journal
• Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education

Finance

• Journal of Finance
• Journal of Financial Economics
• Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking

Management

• Academy of Management Journal
• Academy of Management Perspectives
• Academy of Management Review
• American Behavioral Scientist
• Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences
• Journal of International Management
• Journal of Operations Management
• Organization Science
• Management Science
• Multivariate Behavior Research
• Strategic Management Journal
• Strategic Organization

Marketing

• Journal of Consumer Research
• Journal of Marketing
• Journal of Marketing Research
• Marketing Science

Comments

[Daniel Monnin]

Do you have a list of Colleges/Universities who offer PhD programs that are part time? I need to be employed full time due to personal commitments. Two programs, I have been reviewing are Global Leadership PhD Indiana Tech and Organizational Development Benedictine University. Both are traditional Universities offering PhD programs that are either weekend or online. Do you have a list of Universities to expand on the two I have researched?

[Ibrahim Hussain Didi]

i have done my Ba honors from University of Birmingham, i have interested to have a PhD Programs from Management

[Bo Li]

Very good article for new Phd students. Thanks!

[AACSB International]

Currently, the only AACSB-accredited programs that are part-time and at the doctorate level are DBA or EDM type offerings. We have a quick list of those programs located here: www.bestbizschools.com/doctorate/professional_doctorate_degrees.asp. You can search more specifically through all AACSB-accredited doctoral programs here: www.bestbizschools.com/doctorate/search.asp. I hope this helps!

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[graz]

This is a very useful post for new graduates planning to pursue graduate studies. I recommend this site to my friends.

[Me, Chris]

Thank you for your information. It is really helpful to me because I've been looking into several different schools (all of which are good, but none of them stand out), and this should help me figure out which I should choose.

[Amar - travel aborad]

Hey I work in travel abroad services they offer education abroad (national or international) for a small fee. If you are interested you need to meet the uni/college criteria have a look. Ive posted the link on my name incase its the moderator isn't happy. O yh they do have a list of uni's offering mba's

[B School Rankings]

Doing PHD is not a cakewalk it needs a great amount of dedication and devotion so that one can get the best what he wants. The most important thing is the selection of the field and the point on which a person has to prepare a thesis.