DB8840 serves general management DBA students — those whose capstone projects address management problems that do not fit neatly within the leadership or strategy and innovation specializations. The general management capstone path provides the broadest topical flexibility in the DBA program, encompassing problems in operations management, human resource management, organizational behavior, supply chain management, financial management, marketing strategy, and other functional and cross-functional management domains. This flexibility is both the strength and the challenge of the general management path: without the specialization focus of the leadership or strategy tracks, students must develop their own clear topical focus and disciplinary grounding.
General management capstone scope
The range of problems addressed in general management DBA capstones
- Human resources and organizational behavior problems: One of the most common general management capstone domains addresses HR and organizational behavior challenges: employee engagement and retention (investigating the factors that predict employee commitment and voluntary turnover, and what interventions might improve retention in specific organizational contexts); diversity, equity, and inclusion (examining the organizational practices that produce or impede DEI outcomes and what interventions might produce more equitable organizational environments); performance management system effectiveness (examining whether current performance management approaches produce the intended outcomes of performance improvement, development, and appropriate differentiation); compensation and reward effectiveness (examining whether the organization's reward systems align with its strategic goals and desired behaviors); organizational culture and climate (examining the culture dimensions that most strongly predict organizational performance in the specific organizational context, and what leadership practices might shift culture in beneficial directions)
- Operations and supply chain problems: General management capstones frequently address operational performance challenges: supply chain resilience (examining the factors that make supply chains vulnerable to disruption and what organizational practices build resilience); quality management system effectiveness (examining whether quality management approaches are producing desired outcomes of defect reduction, customer satisfaction, and continuous improvement); operational efficiency improvement (examining the sources of operational inefficiency and what process improvement approaches might most effectively address them); and vendor/supplier management (examining the practices that most effectively build productive supplier relationships in specific industry and organizational contexts)
- Financial and cross-functional problems: Some general management capstones address financial management questions (capital allocation decision-making effectiveness, financial risk management practices, budgeting and forecasting accuracy) or cross-functional integration challenges (how organizations manage the coordination between R&D, manufacturing, and marketing; how organizations integrate acquisitions; how organizations manage major cross-functional transformation initiatives that do not fit within a single functional strategy). The key qualification for the general management path is that the problem should be substantial enough to warrant doctoral-level investigation — not a routine management challenge that could be addressed by an experienced manager without systematic research
Developing the problem of practice in general management
DB8840 develops the problem of practice identification and framing skills for general management topics — with particular attention to the challenge of working in a domain that is broad rather than focused. The general management path requires students to achieve the topical specificity that the leadership and strategy specializations gain from their structured specialization coursework — a general management student cannot produce a compelling capstone simply by investigating "organizational performance," but must develop a specific, bounded, evidence-based problem statement about a particular management practice or outcome in a particular organizational context. The course develops iterative problem statement refinement: starting with a broad area of interest and systematically narrowing through (1) specifying the organizational context (what type of organization, what function, what level, what industry); (2) identifying the specific performance gap (what outcome is worse than it should be, by how much, according to what evidence); (3) grounding the problem in the management literature (what theoretical frameworks and empirical research address this type of problem?); and (4) confirming that the problem is both researchable (the student can collect data to investigate it) and actionable (investigation findings could inform specific management decisions or practices).
Applied framework selection for general management
DB8840 develops the theoretical framework selection challenge that is distinctive to general management capstones — with the full range of management theory potentially relevant, students must make justified choices about which framework(s) most directly illuminate their specific problem. General management capstone frameworks commonly include: organizational learning theory (Argyris & Schon's double-loop learning; Senge's learning organization) for capstones addressing knowledge management, continuous improvement, and adaptive capacity; contingency theory (the insight that there is no single best way to organize or manage — the appropriate practices depend on contextual factors like organizational size, technology, environmental uncertainty, and strategy) for capstones examining management practice effectiveness; organizational justice theory (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice) for capstones examining employee perceptions of fairness and their consequences for engagement, performance, and retention; transaction cost theory for capstones examining vertical integration, outsourcing, and supplier relationship decisions; and institutional theory for capstones examining why organizations adopt certain management practices — whether for efficiency reasons or to achieve social legitimacy in their organizational field. The course develops the framework selection rationale: why this framework is the most appropriate lens for the specific problem, what predictions or insights the framework generates that directly address the capstone research question, and how the framework has been applied in similar research contexts.
DB8840 deliverables include management problem statements, capstone templates, applied framework justifications, and preliminary project plans
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Frequently asked questions
DB8840 is the entry point for the general management capstone path — so by the time students reach this course, they have typically already made the path choice through their prior elective coursework (completing DB8630 or DB8730 instead of starting down a different specialization path). But understanding the genuine differences between the paths is important for making this choice well. The leadership path (DB8610 → DB8620 → DB8630 → DB8640 → DB8650) is optimal for students whose primary interest is in organizational leadership at any level — they want to investigate how leaders develop, how leadership practices affect organizational outcomes, how organizations lead through change, or how leadership culture shapes organizational performance. The strategy and innovation path (DB8710 → DB8720 → DB8730 → DB8740 → DB8750) is optimal for students whose primary interest is in competitive strategy, digital transformation, or innovation management — questions about how organizations achieve and sustain competitive advantage, respond to disruption, or build innovation capability. The general management path (DB8630 or DB8730 prerequisite → DB8840 → DB8850) serves students whose primary management interest spans functional domains that neither specialization covers — HR management, operations management, supply chain management, financial management, marketing strategy, or cross-functional general management. The key question is not "which path will help me graduate most easily" but "which management problem am I most passionate about and most well-positioned to investigate rigorously?" The capstone is a substantial research commitment — alignment between the student's professional experience, organizational access, and intellectual interest is the most important factor in successful capstone completion. DBA students who choose a path for convenience rather than genuine alignment with their professional experience and research interests typically struggle more in the capstone seminar courses than those who choose based on authentic fit.