Georgia State’s DBA Celebrates 15th Anniversary

ATLANTA ‒ In fall 2009, the first cohort of students entered the three-year Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) program at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, graduating in 2012.

Fast-forward to March 2024: Students, alumni, faculty, staff and scholars from other institutions convened in Atlanta for DBA Impact XV—a two-day event celebrating the first fifteen years of the program.

Today (May 3), the DBA program will mark another milestone during commencement exercises for the 13th cohort by conferring its 200th Doctor of Business Administration degree.

Although long established in Europe, practitioner-doctorates in business are still relatively new in the United States but rapidly gaining traction. At its founding, Georgia State’s DBA was the nation’s second program. There now are 26 Doctor of Business Administration programs in the U.S. accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

“Robinson made a pioneering decision in 2007 to launch a DBA program,” according to Regents’ Professor Lars Mathiassen, the program’s founding academic director who served in that position until 2023. “The Robinson DBA has had tremendous influence in multiple areas, starting with the knowledge created by our alumni. Our graduates have successfully defended more than 185 dissertations that have been downloaded more than 270,000 times.”

Robinson also has been instrumental in creating a global community for DBA scholars and programs as a founding partner of the Executive DBA Council, formed in 2011. And to ensure scholars remain involved after earning their doctorate, Robinson established the Center for Engaged Business Research in 2017.

Louis Grabowski (DBA ’12) has a unique perspective on the Robinson Doctor of Business Administration as an alumnus of the first cohort later turned administrator and faculty member. After a career in commercial real estate, Grabowski became DBA program director in 2016, succeeding inaugural director Maury Kalnitz. “Robinson’s DBA program started with an excellent structure and faculty, and the visionary leadership of Academic Director Lars Mathiassen. The program continues to thrive and evolve under his successor, Charles Dhanaraj,” said Grabowski.

Dhanaraj, who joined Robinson in 2023 as academic director of the DBA program, said its alumni are “shaping a better world through scholarship. DBA Impact XV reminded the students, alumni, and faculty that we are building a community of thought leaders committed to innovating a better world for all.”

DBA Impact XV Highlights

Keynote Addresses

• AI and Us: The New Frontier of Work and Life, Arun Rai, Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University
• Evidence-based Management, Denise Rousseau, Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
• Stakeholder Capitalism: Business for Human Beings, Edward Freeman, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia

Thought Leadership Workshops

Awards