Prof. Deniz Saral at the Fortune 500 Conference said “Educational and instructional  qualities of Turkish universities are below  par”.

Our Founding Dean Prof. Deniz Saral made a presentation during the Fortune 500, Smart Future Conference. He emphasized the insufficient supply of doctorally-qualified faculty in business administration in Turkey.

Prof. Saral stated that Turkish PhD programs in Business fail to attract innovative and creative intellectual talent because of the rigid four-year and full-time format. Those who already have a Master’s in business plus a successful management career don’t find business PhD programs attractive at all. Harvard Business School (HBS) designed the Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) degree program in the 60’s to attract this type of talent . The DBA is a research-based program and demands applied  research addressing  actual business management problems.  Even though the DBA is popular  in North America and Europe, it has not found its way into Turkey until now. 41 North Business School, through collaboration with leading and accredited European business schools, will offer the DBA degree program in Istanbul.

Prof.  Saral  shared interesting HBS statistics. Eighty percent (80%) of the doctoral degrees earned from HBS in 2017 were DBAs covering accounting, management, business economics, marketing and organizational behavior.

Prof. Saral concluded his remarks by stating that the recent decision by the Turkish Government not to require professorial rank from future university rectors was to the point, because “having achieved professorial rank does not imply that the academician has the requisite management skills to manage a university”.