The duration of the Executive Ph.D. Programme is ideally five years, within which the candidate must complete all their requirements. The first two years consist of rigorous coursework (both off-line and on-line) to provide a theoretically sophisticated foundation of management knowledge and critical thinking skills to encourage independent research abilities. The student(s) then must clear a Comprehensive Qualifying Examination and Dissertation Proposal Defence; after which they will start the deep-dive into a specific area of research enquiry chosen by the Doctoral student under the guidance of his/her/their thesis advisor and thesis advisory committee. The institution offers full academic freedom to students to curate their own areas of inquiry and work closely with the faculty/faculties of their choice. The culmination of the Executive Ph.D. Programme is the successful Public Defence of the Doctoral Dissertation by the Executive Ph.D. Student

Executive Ph.D. students are also expected to publish in top quality academic journals.

The Exec Ph.D. programme has four mandatory components:

  1. Upon joining the programme, students go through mandatory course work phase which would be a mix of offline and online classes, consisting of specialized elective and compulsory courses (over a period of two years).

    The qualifying CGPA for the whole period of coursework is 6.0.

  2. Comprehensive qualifying examination (administered by the respective academic group) upon successful completion of CQE, a student moves into the thesis or dissertation phase.

  3. Thesis proposal defence

  4. Thesis submission and defence.

Students are required to attend and complete a teaching practicum and a case writing workshop during the tenure of the Executive Ph.D. Programme.

The student would be asked to withdraw from the Executive Ph.D. Programme if he/she/they is/are unable to meet the CGPA expectations or is unable to pass the CQE.

Please note that it is the responsibility of the concerned student to obtain the necessary leave from the place of work for attending all offline requirements at IIM-C including coursework, workshops etc.