As more and more organizations are recognizing the need to conserve energy and other resources, this degree can help you acquire the credentials to guide organizational policy and action in a direction that shows concern for profits, people and the planet.

Designed and taught by a dedicated team of management professionals and academics, the DM with a concentration in Environmental and Social Sustainability is designed for the professional who is passionate about making a positive difference in the world.

Courses in our project-based Professional Learning Model™ are taught in an executive format and delivered online. Twice each year, students attend an intensive residential symposium lasting four and a half days.

The DM with a concentration in Environmental and Social Sustainability is a three-year program that gives students the opportunity to become familiar with management theory, learn to effectively manage change through strategic organizational change and research, predict future trends in sustainability based on research, and, ultimately, contribute to new environmental and social sustainability literature.

• Year 1: The Foundations
  The beginning of the program focuses on research. Each student will spend the first year learning about classic and current management literature and developing competence in research methods. A review of the literature will be completed and work will begin on an action research proposal.
• Year 2: Acquisition of Knowledge
  Once the foundation is in place, year two is the time the student chooses an area of concentration and begins to form a personal understanding of the management research and methods used in that area. Course work will focus on the concentration area: Environmental and Social Sustainability.
• Year 3: Leadership and Professional Advancement
  Coursework in the final year of the program includes one required course in futuring and innovation, plus three courses from the student’s selected area of study. The final year will result in the production of a series of articles or a dissertation that must be approved by a three-member committee.

Successful completion of the DM with a concentration in Environmental and Social Sustainability can provide students with an applicable foundation of industry-related knowledge and skills, including how to:

• Attain familiarity with the body of knowledge in current management theory.
• Become a subject-matter expert in a specialized area of management.
• Develop a leadership style based on ethical and philosophical consideration.
• Effectively manage change through strategic design and research.
• Predict future trends through effective research and qualitative methods.
• Contribute to management literature via literature reviews, practitioner articles and research.
• Apply systems thinking skills to environmental issues.
• Develop a plan for the implementation of the triple bottom line in an organization.
• Experience an entire cycle in action research in a complex organization
• Frame policy agendas for creating inter organizational collaboration among businesses, government and advocacy organizations.

Coursework can give students the opportunity to acquire credentials to guide organizational policy in a direction that shows concern for profits, people, and the planet. You will have the opportunity to become familiar with the body of current and classic management theory, learn to effectively manage change through strategic organizational change and research, predict future trends in sustainability based on research and qualitative methods and, ultimately, contribute to new environmental and social sustainability literature. For example:

• In Systems Thinking for Sustainability, students are introduced to both core sustainability content and systems thinking skills, focusing attention particularly on issues of global resource flows, energy, toxicity and habitat.
• In Organizational Performance and the Triple Bottom Line, students examine the inherent difficulties in implementing the triple bottom line by focusing on the making of difficult decisions that attempt to simultaneously address economic, ethical, technological, social justice and environmental concerns.
• In Futuring and Innovation in ESS, students develop skills in futuring via Delphi, Future Search, scenario building and other techniques. They will also talk with futurists and futures organizations, becoming involved in the World Futures Society and tech trending with leading electronics and aerospace companies.

Additional concentration courses in this program include:

• Advanced Action Research for ESS
• Policy and Governance in Trans-Organizational
• Strategic Thinking for ESS

The Doctor of Management program includes twelve 5-credit instructional courses, taken one per quarter for three years, plus a research-and-writing class taken each quarter. Each class is conducted online. Twice each year, students attend an intensive residential symposium lasting four and a half days. Core courses include:

• Fundamentals of Management
• Research and Writing I
• Research Methods and Design
• Research and Writing II
• Qualitative and Ethnographic Methods
• R&W III: Action Research Theory
• Quantitative Methods
• R&W IV: The Practice of Action Research
• R&W V: Process Consulting & Intervention Theory
• R&W VI: The Practice of Process Consulting & Intervention
• Research and Writing VII
• Research and Writing VIII
• Philosophy of Science, Values, and Ethics
• Research and Writing IX
• Leadership
• Research and Writing X
• Research and Writing XI
• Research and Writing XII

Successful completion of this program also requires you to communicate your research results and prepare them for publication. You will have the option to complete a dissertation or a number of publishable-quality papers.