Professional doctoral theses by explication as professional management development

This paper aims to explain the nature, and identify the quality criteria of a doctoral thesis by explication for professional management development.

A working definition of a professional doctoral explication thesis (DET) is proposed and substantiated by five experts. The paper takes a practical, educational approach to senior executive development through action learning and explication writing; and it briefly explains the philosophical assumptions underpinning the practice of explication writing, including grounded theory, personal construct theory, critical theory, and systems theory.

The paper identifies the main principles affecting the quality of a thesis, the main characteristics of a DET, the differences between a DET and a PhD thesis, and the differences between “researching” and “writing” an explication.

Length of a journal article severely restricts capacity to explain in detail how to write, supervise and examine a DET. With these limitations, this paper presents a rationale for, and new conceptual models of, both knowledge creation and a thesis by explication.

The paper offers a practical checklist for candidates, supervisors and examiners for evaluating the quality of a DET, the published works supporting it, and the oral examination.

The contributions relate to first, conceptual models of knowledge creation, explication research activities and explication writing; and second, a practical checklist mentioned above.