The renowned social psychologist Kurt Lewin once wrote, “there is nothing so practical as a good theory.” We agree.
At the Center for Values-Driven Leadership, we believe that good theory and evidence-based research are absolutely vital for great leadership and building great companies that do great things.
At the same time, academic theory can be out of touch if not rigorously tested and refined by the realities of daily practice. If a scholar’s ideas cannot hold up to the complexities of leading in the global economy, then they hold little value outside the pages of an academic journal.
At the Center for Values-Driven Leadership, we stand boldly in the gap between the academic and business communities. We hold to the conviction that these communities need one another and are enriched by their interaction and integration.
A Ph.D./D.B.A. Program Designed for Senior Executives
In our doctoral program, we achieve this integration by equipping senior executives to become scholar-practitioners. We do this by:
- Providing a curriculum deeply grounded in the latest theory and research.
- Inviting top executives and distinguished visiting scholars into the classroom to share their knowledge and road test their ideas.
- Incorporating action-learning into course assignments and inviting students to experiment with existing models and create new ones for immediate application.
- Encouraging spirited dialogue among students to debate course readings and view theories through the lens of their diverse experiences as senior executives.
- Training students to do rigorous applied research, publish for scholarly and practitioner audiences, and present their original ideas at academic and professional conferences.
- Arranging global exchanges to enrich our research, theorizing, and practice by engaging with top scholars, executives, and students from other countries and cultures.
- Helping students design and complete their dissertation research on significant topics of enduring practical impact.
Outside of the doctoral program, we further integrate scholar-practitioner approaches through our research initiatives, which focus on how to develop values-driven leaders and build values-driven companies; through our Senior Executive Roundtables and Leadership Lecture Series, which pair leading scholars with the top executives as keynote speakers; through our publications, presentations, and online content, which intentionally target both academic and practitioner audiences; and through our consulting services, which bring evidence-based research and proven theories into the workplace to help companies achieve superior results.
As professionals and leaders in the field, students in the Ph.D./D.B.A. Program in Values-Driven Leadership are invited and expected to engage with both the academic and practitioner communities during their time in the program We believe this grounding in a positive, values-driven approach to business, combined with good, practical theory and research, equips our students to become global thought leaders and have a transformative impact on business and society.
Learn more about the Center’s scholar-practitioner approach from one of our students, John Heiser, COO of Magnetrol International.
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Jim Ludema, Ph.D., is the co-founder and director of the Center for Values-Driven Leadership. To read more about our doctoral program for senior executives, visit www.cvdl.org/lead.