msu dissertation proposal

MSU Libraries

Course guides.

• Need help? Ask a Librarian

Capstone Guide for MPH Students

• Introduction to Capstone Resources
• Searching from the Library Homepage
• Primary Research Option
• Secondary Research Option
• Systematic Review (Tertiary Research) Option
• Research Proposal Option
• Program Evaluation Proposal Option
• Program Proposal Option

Public Health Librarian

Guides to Writing Research Proposals

• Writing an Academic Research Proposal This article assumes that you're writing a research proposal to submit for support or funding, so it's describing something slightly different from your Capstone project. But the parts on the sections in a proposal may be useful.

• << Previous: Systematic Review (Tertiary Research) Option
• Next: Program Evaluation Proposal Option >>
• Last Updated: Feb 23, 2024 4:42 PM
• URL: https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/mphce

• Areas of Research
• Students & Placements
• [email protected]
• (517) 355-7486
• Curriculum Curriculum
• Dive Deeper Dive Deeper
• Tuition & Financial Aid Tuition & Financial Aid
• Contact Information Contact Information

Ph.D. in Accounting

Pave the way for innovative accounting research and education..

Our competitive Ph.D. program prepares doctoral candidates to become productive researchers and educators at top research universities.

Accounting Doctoral Student Handbook

Accounting Ph.D. Program Overview

We pride ourselves on our comprehensive program, our internationally renowned faculty and the diverse environment in which our doctoral candidates learn. A key element of the Ph.D. in accounting program is collaborative work between doctoral students and faculty members. We strive to maintain a program with approximately 12 full-time, in-residence students. This size of the Accounting Ph.D. program allows for effective faculty-student interrelationships, collaboration and competitive funding for all students in residence.

Our department was ranked 14th overall in the 2021 Brigham Young University accounting faculty publication rankings (based on all publications since 1990) and was ranked 15th in the 2019 Public Accounting Report rankings of Ph.D. programs.

Accounting Ph.D. graduates enjoy considerable success in their careers. They are accounting professors at many nationally recognized universities and have earned national recognition for their contributions to the development of accounting research, teaching and practice. MSU graduates hold distinguished chairs in accounting, are editors of premier research journals and are authors of some of the largest selling accounting textbooks in the United States. They also hold positions as chairpersons or directors of major accounting departments, deans of business schools, and people with significant national accounting policy-making responsibilities. Our Doctorate in Accounting graduates distinguish themselves by the frequency with which they are members of editorial boards of leading accounting journals and by their successful publication of research. This emphasis on research and scholarship is the hallmark of MSU’s accounting doctoral programs.

Curriculum Overview

The Ph.D. in Accounting program is a five-year program for most students, although some students successfully complete the program in four years. We strive to maintain a program with approximately 12 full-time, in-residence students. This size of program allows for effective faculty-student interrelationships, collaboration and competitive funding for all students in residence.

Requirements

The Broad College of Business and the Department of Accounting and Information Systems have course and other requirements for the Ph.D. degree that, in total, form a student’s program of study.

• Each student must know and be able to apply certain concepts, tools, and techniques of business practice. A student who enters the accounting Ph.D. program without having earned a business or management degree from an institution accredited by the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) must develop a broad understanding of the functional areas of business and management by completing coursework in accounting, finance, management, supply chain management and marketing. Students can petition the Doctoral Program Committee for exemption from this requirement based on coursework taken as part of a business or management degree that is not accredited by the AACSB (see Broad Graduate School of Management requirements).
• A student must have a minimum familiarity with certain concepts, tools and techniques of accounting practice. The materials covered in accounting courses ACC 300 and 301 or 805 and 807, 321 or 821, 331 or 833, 341 or 841 or 843, and 411 are sufficient to satisfy the minimum familiarity requirement. However, the minimum familiarity requirement is automatically fulfilled by students who enter the doctoral program with a degree in accounting from an AACSB-accredited accounting program. Alternatively, this requirement can be met by taking certain accounting courses at MSU or another institution with an accredited program. If a student has an accounting degree from an institution that is not accredited by the AACSB, then he/she could petition the doctoral program director to get a waiver for one or more of the required accounting courses by providing necessary supporting evidence.
• Each student must take a set of Ph.D.-level micro-economic courses (EC 811A, EC 812A and EC 812B, or AFRE 801, 802 and 805) in their first semester.
• The major field of study is accounting. The major in accounting consists of:

ACC 950: Doctoral Seminar in Accounting Research

Research on auditing, financial and managerial accounting, and taxation using theoretical perspectives and research methods from the social sciences and business disciplines. A total of four different research seminars are taken in the first and second year of the program.

MGT 906: Organizational Research Methods Methods for scientific research in the areas of organizational behavior, personnel and organizational theory. Theory building, hypothesis formation and testing, reliability theory, construct validity, external validity and research design.

Each student has a minor field of study. The minor is a minimum of 9 hours of course work. The minor is intended to provide theoretical framework, perspective and content as a basis to conduct research in accounting. Examples of minors are micro-economics, finance, organizational behavior, operations management and psychology.

Competence in research-related areas is required. This requirement may be satisfied by completing a minimum of 12 credits in research-related courses with a four-course minimum. Courses must be at the 400-level or above to assure graduate-level competence in the areas studied. Research-related credits earned to meet the requirements of a degree other than the Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration will not be accepted in fulfillment of this requirement. These courses typically are research-method and statistics courses offered in departments such as economics, marketing, supply chain, psychology and statistics.

Each student must maintain an overall GPA of at least 3.25 by the end of the second semester of full-time enrollment and thereafter to remain in the program. A 2.0 grade is the minimum acceptable grade for a course in a student’s program of study or for graduation requirements.

Up to the time of dissertation proposal defense, each student must write two review reports per academic year in the style of referee reports (to be done under the advice of the doctoral program director).

In addition to dissertation research, Ph.D. students are required to complete two research projects as part of the program requirements. The first research project would entail a literature review and include a replication of selected segments from a paper in the area reviewed. Students are welcome to go beyond the minimum requirement for the first research project (e.g., a minor extension of the chosen paper). The second research project would be a completed working paper including testable hypotheses and results. This research paper could be an independent research paper or a paper co-authored with faculty members or other Ph.D. students in the department. The ultimate objective is to create a paper with sufficient quality to allow it to be submitted to a refereed scholarly journal in accounting or related disciplines.

Comprehensive Exam

Prior to taking the Ph.D. comprehensive exam, each student must have successfully completed the requirements for the first research project (including presenting in a departmental workshop) as well as completed four enrollments of the accounting Ph.D. seminars (ACC 950) and MGT 906. Given a student can take more than four enrollments of ACC 950, each student must obtain the prior approval of the doctoral program director for the four specific enrollments that would satisfy the prerequisites for the comprehensive exam. This examination is usually given in early summer and has three parts:

• Parts 1 and 2: These two parts will cover the different subfields of accounting that were included in the accounting research seminars.
• Part 3: Critique of a working paper in the student’s area of research interest.

The purpose of this examination is to test a student’s knowledge of the scholarly accounting literature, with emphasis on historical and contemporary issues, theories and research methods. In addition to assessing a student’s knowledge, the examination tests a student’s ability to design, evaluate and communicate scholarly research.

Each student must complete a doctoral dissertation judged to be a significant contribution to knowledge by a faculty committee consisting of not less than four members, one designated as chairperson who is an accounting faculty member from the MSU’s Department of Accounting and Information Systems. The doctoral dissertation proposal must be presented at the department research workshop series, with all the members of the student’s dissertation committee in attendance. The dissertation proposal must be approved by three-fourths of the student’s dissertation committee, including approval from the chair. A successful oral defense of the completed doctoral dissertation is required in an open meeting, with all the members of the student’s dissertation committee in attendance. See the Graduate School website for important dissertation requirements .

Dive Deeper

• How to Apply
• Students and Placements

Students are admitted to the accounting doctoral program only for the fall semester and on a full-time basis. Find out more about admission criteria and the application process.

Faculty-student collaboration is a significant part of the Broad experience. Doctoral accounting students have the opportunity to work with some of the top researchers across multiple disciplines. Find out more about the research opportunities for accounting doctoral students at MSU.

The accounting faculty at the Michigan State University Broad College of Business are among the best in the world. Find out more about our faculty currently working with doctoral students.

See a roster of current accounting doctoral students in the program and a listing of our graduates’ placements at research institutions across the globe over the last decade.

Tuition and Financial Aid

At the present time, all doctoral students in accounting receive financial support from the department, the college, the university and/or various external organizations. Our goal is to provide every student admitted to the program with a graduate assistantship and/or a fellowship. The assistantship is usually at a half-time level. A half-time appointment requires that the student be a teaching assistant and/or a research assistant for 20 hours a week. Renewal of financial assistance is contingent on the student making satisfactory progress in the program.

Assistantships include a nine-credit hour tuition waiver (i.e. tuition is covered for up to nine credit hours per semester) for each of the fall and spring semesters, a waiver for the out-of-state portion of tuition for non-Michigan residents and health insurance. The waiver does not include registration fees or other fees.

For more information about funding sources, visit the MSU Graduate School .

Frequently Asked Questions

Program overview.

The program is designed to be completed in five years to give students the best chance at completing research projects prior to going on the job market in order to increase their odds of finding an elite research position. Occasionally, students with advanced research portfolios can graduate in four years.

The doctoral program is strictly a full-time program. We require students to be on campus on a full-time basis, as doctoral students have a broad range of responsibilities including coursework, research assistantships and independent study.

The range of responsibilities during your research assistantship are broad and cover aspects related to forming, developing, managing and executing a theoretically sound and statistically valid and rigorous research project. Students are required to conduct thorough literature reviews, develop and write conceptual framework and hypotheses development sections, collect and analyze data using advanced econometric methods and provide support for why the research is relevant and important to the academic and practitioner fields.

Graduates of the accounting Ph.D. program at Broad frequently cite their experience as research assistants as the paramount reason for their ability to form, develop, manage and subsequently submit their research to top accounting journals after graduating from the doctoral program.

Recent placements include:

• Florida State University
• Harvard University
• University of Florida
• University of Notre Dame

See Complete List of Placements

Reviews of applications will begin December 1 and will continue until positions are filled. The deadline for applications is January 15. All accepted students begin the doctoral program in August – there are no spring or summer starts.

GMAT scores have ranged from 650 to the upper 700s, with most scores in the lower 700s. We require a minimum TOEFL score for international applicants. Learn more on the Admissions page.

The number of students admitted to the doctoral program each year has ranged from one to four, but is typically two or three.

Financial Aid

All doctoral students are supported by graduate (teaching/research) assistantships. There is no separate application for assistantships. For the last several years, the typical doctoral student earns approximately $29,000, in addition to their tuition waivers and insurance coverage.

Contact Information

• Department of Accounting and Information Systems
• Business College Complex
• 632 Bogue St Rm N270
• East Lansing, MI 48824
• Phone: (517) 355-7486
• Fax: (517) 432-1101

Get Connected with Broad:

• 632 Bogue St

International Studies & Programs

Gliozzo dissertation research scholarship, the dr. charles and marjorie gliozzo dissertation research scholarship is available to msu doctoral students with dissertation research objectives who have defended, or are in the process of defending, a dissertation proposal. the scholarship supports field research abroad in support of the student's dissertation., award amounts vary by year but will be no less than $1000. the application deadline for this scholarship is march 10th..

• Applicants are citizens of the United States.
• Applicants are enrolled in doctoral programs at MSU, have garnered sufficient academic credits, have clearly-delineated dissertation research objectives and ideally have defended or are in the process of defending their research prospectus/proposal.
• Applicants have demonstrated an ability to undertake primary and/or secondary research abroad.
• Applicants have exhibited scholarly excellence in their academic endeavors.
• Applicants epitomize exemplary character and possess personal attributes which will contribute to their ability to be successful abroad.

Submit the following materials:

• Completed Gliozzo Dissertation Research Scholarship Application Form
• Letter of application describing how scholarship funds would be utilized vis-à-vis student's program of study and how the research project will contribute to extant scholarship.
• Letter of support from applicant's academic or research adviser (Reference letters are confidential and will only be shared with members of the Selection Committee) 
• Letter of support from a second faculty member.
• Official MSU transcript that includes fall grades. Transcripts from previously attended educational institutions are not required.
• Curriculum Vitae or Resume.

Completed application packets should be submitted by email to isp.scholarship(at)msu.edu by 11:59pm EST on March 1.

Assistant Dean of Global Youth Advancement International Studies and Programs Michigan State University 427 N. Shaw Lane, Room 207 East Lansing, MI 48824-1035 phone: 517-355-2350 isp.scholarship(at)msu.edu

Peace Corps Application Workshop

June 12, 2024

Linguistics student shares CLACS fellowship experience

Fulbright Program Information Session

May 9, 2024

Leadership program seeks to address scientist gender gap

#MSUinternational

• MIdlands State University Institutional Repository
• Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Management
• Agricultural Economics and Development
• Dissertations

Dissertations : [11] Community home page

Recent submissions.

• 1 Chinyoka, Unanda
• 1 Gutu, Palmmah
• 1 Hluyo, Beauty Nyasha
• 1 Kurehwatira, Tendai
• 1 Makotose, Taidaishe L.
• 1 Mandalaza, Tinovimba Eric
• 1 Maramba, Knowledge
• 1 Mazorodze, Brian Tavonga
• 1 Ncube, Buhlebenkosi A.
• 1 Tinarwo, Christina

Collections in this community

Bsc agricultural economics and development honours degree [11]    .

Department of Sociology College of Social Science

Navigating college advising.

Tue, April 25, 2023 11:00 AM at Zoom

Sociology PhD student Katrina "Kitty" Groeller is defending her dissertation proposal over Zoom.

Title: Navigating college advising

Abstract: College advisers are responsible for fostering college-going cultures in public schools, reframing higher education as accessible and valuable to first-generation, low-income, and otherwise marginalized students. However, the temporal limitations of college advising programs and the positionality of advisers can detrimentally impact the effectiveness of their advising, the college-going culture they seek to foster, and the student communities they serve. Using a mixed methods design with semi-structured interviews and an online survey, this dissertation explores the professional role of college advisers and their navigation of insider/outsider identities.

Committee: Clifford Broman, Isabel Ayala, Zhenmei Zhang, and Joanne Marciano

• myState on Mississippi State University
• Directory on Mississippi State University
• Calendars on Mississippi State University
• A-Z Index on Mississippi State University
• Maps on Mississippi State University
• News on Mississippi State University
• Contact on Mississippi State University

Thesis and Dissertation Formatting Hybrid Workshop: Regular Session

June 8, 2024 1:30 pm to 3:00 pm, about this event.

This combined workshop (registrants can attend in person or online) covers the submission process for format review and demonstrates how to use the automated templates to format MSU theses and dissertations to the requirements set forth in the Standards for Preparing Theses and Dissertations: 8th edition. These templates were designed to help an author organize and format their document with minimal effort so that their focus can be on the content of their document. Those who have already started writing or have already defended are welcome to bring their current documents (either on flash drive or email attachment) to start the process of placing their content into the template

• Find Mississippi State University on Facebook
• Find Mississippi State University on Instagram
• Find Mississippi State University on LinkedIn
• Find Mississippi State University on Pinterest
• Find Mississippi State University on Twitter
• Find Mississippi State University on YouTube