Doctorial Comprehensive Examination
Doctoral Comprehensive Examination (DCE) At the end of Year 3 of the DBA Program, it is a requirement to take, complete, and pass the Doctoral Comprehensive Examination (DCE) as required by the University and its accrediting body. The purpose of the DCE is to measure your overall understanding of the outcomes you have learned throughout your DBA program. The framework provided is to approach answering/responding to 4 of 5 subject question areas as presented in a scenario. The scenario describes that the student has been promoted to an executive position in a large organization. Therefore, it is from a leadership role that the student is part of the executive leadership team seeking to provide strategic direction for a company dealing with issues associated with growth. Reviewing your DBA courses and the learning outcome objectives will help you to prepare for the examination. Scenario: Organizations and their leadership must remain cognizant of immediate and critical change in their practices in the era of imposed restrictions by the COVID-19 pandemic. Responding preemptively and accurately to the change is an essential theme for savvy senior management of any given firm. You are working for a CPA firm with 1800 employees dispersed in several locations in the United States and six subsidiary locations in three other countries. Your company has experienced a sudden and significant increase demand for the services provided to various customer sectors. You hold the position of Organizational Development Professional at your company. You have been tasked by the senior leadership at your organization to propose a plan of action for implementation for the return of employees to the physical work environment in the second quarter of 2021. You are also charged with keeping the current work-from-home policy for the segment of employees who prefer remote work on a permanent basis. Your new responsibilities include an account of policies, procedures and training modules to be implemented in order to improve the performance of the organization. The goal is to keep the internal capabilities which are part of your organizational advantage compared to the peer market competition. Information for students responding to the Doctoral Comprehensive Examination; Keep in mind that any plans and initiatives must be implemented effectively to maintain (or hopefully augment) market-share and competitive advantage in the industry. As with most organizational growth, it is also imperative not to reduce the quality of your products or customer service during this phase. From a leadership perspective, please provide analysis, plans, concepts and strategies that were learned in the DBA program to address four (4) of the following (5) subject areas applied to the business scenario given above: 1. Global Business Initiatives: You must demonstrate an understanding of the significance of diversification of the company services as you will develop and construct strategies for the sustainability of the company long term. Your strategic analysis should include the value of international business relationships including contracts, laws, and your understanding of their application to the countries where you have branch offices and where you might grow. 2. Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability: You will create a strategy for corporate sustainability that include the perspectives of social, economic, political and environmental impact. The strategy should include any required changes of corporate culture and demonstrate that the implementation of the strategy will lead the organization to sustainable profitability. 3. Strategic Planning & Implementation: Perform a SWOT analysis and justify how it can assist the organization to attain its goals for the growth of current offices and new locations. Write in detail about how you will successfully overcome resistance to the proposed changes. 4. Creative Solutions: Write about how you would incorporate learning modules that encourage creative problem-solving for the C-Suite; the division managers; the senior CPAs; and the support segment. Explain in detail how you will foster an environment within the entire organization that encourages creativity. Describe the process by outlining a plan to incorporate creativity and innovation into the organizations culture. 5. Workforce Planning and Best Practices for Acquisition and Performance Evaluation of the Skilled Employees: Create a strategy to incorporate and manage methods that will enable the organization to be more competitive. Discuss concepts of workforce training and development as it relates to the multiple generations found in the current workplace. Provide your plan to measure and evaluate the success of your strategic plan at the end of the 2021. Requirements Written responses must be presented in 13-15 pages (excluding title, reference, and appendices page). APA 7th edition formatted paper. The written response must include headings that indicate each concept area, i.e. global business, creative solutions, etc. The comprehensive examination paper must demonstrate the students ability to do doctorate-level research. Each response must have an appropriate number of scholarly and quality references and in-text citations to support the findings in the response. The APA formatting is part of the evaluation of the examination and students are strongly advised to study APA for correct usage. This is an open-book/notes examination and the student will have 10 days to complete it. Work will be presented in an APA 7th edition formatted paper that is 13 to 15 pages in length. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Papers must be appropriately cited and will be submitted to Turnitin for originality and similarity analysis. Students are allowed to communicate with professors, staff, and colleagues for guidance on explanation or clarification of questions only. No assistance can be rendered in the form of answering any of the questions. Any violation of this policy can lead to disqualification and/or termination from the Doctoral Program and is at the discretion of the University. Grading of the Doctoral Comprehensive Examination Two reviewers will grade each DCE examination within a 10 business day time frame. In the event that the 2 reviewers do not achieve consensus, a 3rd reviewer will be asked to assess the examination. The majority consensus will prevail in the decision of the final grade. For this examination, students can either earn a Pass, Fail, or Rewrite. If a student earns a Pass, they will be allowed to begin the second Final Project/Dissertation block. If a student earns a Fail, they will have a 2nd opportunity to retake the exam in its entirety at the next scheduled exam date set by the University. If a student earns a Rewrite, they will have the opportunity to revise the submitted exam and make the recommended edits, additions, and/or deletions as denoted within a time frame of 5 days. The University will regrade the submission within 5-8 days. Students are only permitted two chances to retake the examination upon a failed grade. If a student receives a second Fail, they will not be permitted to progress in the DBA program and may be dismissed from the University.