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Study & research sustainable management

  • Learn to research, measure and communicate business sustainability outcomes
  • Grow holistically through daily practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique
  • Develop leadership skills to help move organizations and the business world toward sustainable practices

Expertise in holistic management

Are you ready to become a leader in the field of holistic management? In MIU’s PhD in Management program, you’ll explore how organizations can profit while producing positive impacts for society and the environment, develop the skills that you need to succeed in sustainable business, and grow as a person through daily meditation practice.


Contact the Director of China Programs – Lijuan Cai


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Program structure

The PhD in Management has four phases:

  • Doctoral Course Work. Students take a program of courses that consists of a PhD Core of 6 courses covering consciousness-based managing for sustainability. There is also a required Research Methods Core of 4-5 courses, Professional Development seminars in teaching and writing, and a sequence of courses in the Science and Technology of Consciousness, which students learn to integrate with their academic studies in sustainable management. Classes are offered at a part-time pace, meaning 4 credit courses over a period of 2 months and 2 credit courses taught over 1 month.
  • Written Comprehensive and Oral Qualifying Exams. Students undertake a written comprehensive exam and a written and oral qualifying exam. When a student successfully completes the qualifying examination, the student is advanced to PhD candidate status. The core work and qualifying exams can be completed in the first two years of enrollment in the program.
  • Dissertation Proposal. When a dissertation proposal is accepted, the student is advanced to PhD researcher status.
  • Dissertation Research and Defense. The PhD researcher must write the dissertation research and successfully complete an oral defense of the dissertation.

Practical management for a changing world


This program prepares students to utilize high-level management knowledge and skills in their careers, but with an added “green” twist. Students will learn about organizational behavior and theory, implementing sustainability in business, multiple regression analysis, multivariate analysis, quantitative research design, and more. By bringing sustainable and traditional business methodologies together, students will be prepared to lead the businesses they work with into the future.

Proud Partner of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) and Shenyang Jianzhu University ( SJZU )

During the PhD program half of the courses are taught by the respective partner institution (on-campus) and the other half is taught online by MIU. It is a bilingual program . A translator will be available, therefore English proficiency is recommended but not required.
It is an executive PhD program with two-weekend teachings each block, plus daily self-study and online discussions.
Students will receive their PhD from MIU.

More about the program

In our block system, you’ll take only one course at a time, fully immersing yourself in that subject. This approach enables you to learn more with less stress, with deeper understanding and better retention of the course material.

You’ll also enjoy stronger connections with ​your professors and classmates—and you’ll never have to contend with a ​nerve-wracking ​finals week!

It is an executive PhD program with two-weekend teachings each block, plus daily self-study and online discussions. Student is expected spend 1.5 to 2 hours study per day on average, this including readings, assignments, research, online questions, Webinar, and discussions etc. Weekend teaching is in classroom, the rest are online.

Academia doesn’t have to be stressful — that’s why all MIU students, staff, and faculty practice the Transcendental Meditation technique twice a day.

This scientifically-validated technique has been shown to lower stress, enhance brain functioning, and support overall health. After regular meditation practice, our students often report feeling less stressed and more creative than ever.

A major emphasis of our PhD program is preparing graduate students to become teachers and leaders in business, academics, and beyond. You’ll be trained in principles and practices for successful writing and teaching, which can be applied in a variety of leadership, consulting and academic situations.

  • CSR and Financial Performance in China
  • The role of HRM in implementing sustainability
  • Conceptions of sustainability in Cameroon
  • Meditation and trust in supply chain relationships
  • Consciousness and Success
  • Brain integration and management integrity
  • Consumers and non-genetically modified food
  • Effects of green-certified building
  • Moral development of CPA’s
  • ISO-14001 Environmental Management System and corporate financial performance
  • Development economics based on natural law
  • Self development and leadership behaviors
  • The effects of the Transcendental Meditation on stress in managers
It is reasonable to expect to take three to four years to complete the Ph.D. with this hybrid model.

Entrance Requirements

To enter the Doctor of Philosophy in Management program, a student must:

  • Hold an MBA, master’s degree in a business-related field, or a master’s degree and substantial business-related work experience
  • Minimum GPA of 3.0
  • At least three+ years of professional work experience in an executive position.

Featured faculty

Professor Herriott received his PhD from Stanford in management science and engineering. He is the author of scholarly papers in the areas of economics, organization theory, and business strategy. His most recent books are Feasibility Analysis for Sustainable Technologies (2015) and Metrics for Sustainable Business (2016).

College of Business Administration Faculty

Program Cost

Contact the Director of China Programs- Lijuan Cai for detailed information

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Degree Requirements

To graduate with a PhD in Management, students must successfully complete all general requirements for the doctoral degree, including time limits. These general requirements include:

  • FOR 500 Science of Creative Intelligence (4 credits) or STC 508 Exploring Consciousness (4 credits)
  • After the Science and Technology of Consciousness or Science of Creative Intelligence course, a Forest Academy course of at least 1 credit is required for each semester the student is enrolled in the PhD program.

In addition, students must successfully complete the following:

Core Management Courses (22 credits)

A review of the classic works in the Organizational Behavior (OB) literature, this course examines the main issues and questions addressed by OB since its inception in the late 1930s, including motivation, small group behavior, leadership, power, and organizational culture and change. Students will develop hypotheses for how expansion of consciousness influences organizational behavior. (2 credits)
Scientific measurement of individual characteristics provides a research framework for assessing individual and organization development toward higher states of consciousness. Development of the mind toward higher states of consciousness provides the natural foundation for enhancing employee performance, growth of enlightened leadership, and organization transformation toward sustainability. Topics include: the construction and use of valid and reliable assessment instruments. (2 credits)
What are the findings of behavioral sciences regarding effective practices for the transformation of organizations and communities to achieve positive holistic outcomes more effectively? We examine selected research on topics such as understanding barriers and enablers, managing behavioral change, positive leadership, stakeholder engagement, and conflict resolution. Development of individual, organizational, and societal consciousness expresses itself in new management practices and forms of organization that enable organizations to innovatively address social and environmental needs. (4 credits)
This course prepares doctoral students to be competent in the conception, organization, writing, and presentation of scholarly works. (2 credits)
Through the study of articles in the current literature on business strategy, this course focuses on operationalization and measurement of research concepts while touching on management theories, research design, and statistical analysis methods. Topics include accounting measures, market measures, hybrid measures (risk-adjusted accounting measures and Tobin’s Q), and composite measures such as the balanced scorecard and sustainability measures. (2–4 credits) The 4-credit version includes a deeper reading of the literature.
This course prepares students to conduct an exhaustive search of the peer-reviewed research literature in their topic area and identify potential areas of inquiry for their dissertation. The students learn to conduct effective literature searches, develop a plan for writing comprehensive, and synthesized reviews of research literature, critically review and write about the underlying theory/conceptual frameworks, identify gaps in the existing research knowledge base to lay the foundation for future research, and focus on developing a scholarly narrative supporting all points of view of the study. (4 credits)

Research Methods (20 credits)

In quantitative research, a key step is a statistical analysis to discern meaningful patterns in the study data and relationships between variables. This course provides a foundational understanding of statistical concepts and methods for data analysis and interpretation.
Topics include principles of statistical thinking for management research; numerical and graphical tools for describing and analyzing business data; the normal distribution, populations, and sampling; confidence intervals, hypothesis testing; correlation coefficients, and simple linear regression. (2–4 credits) Prerequisite: MATH 152 or the equivalent.
This course provides a conceptual introduction to the multivariate statistical methods most commonly used in management research in order to prepare students to critically read the quantitative management research literature and begin preparation of their own dissertation research proposal. Topics include: review of simple linear regression and correlation, multiple regression, logistic regression, discriminant function analysis, univariate comparison of means (analysis of variance), multivariate analysis of variance, principal components and factor analysis, path analysis and structural equation modeling, and multilevel modeling. (4 credits)
This course examines contemporary procedures of applied multiple regression analysis for business data. Topics include: review of simple regression, hypothesis tests and confidence intervals, modeling nonlinear regression relationships, model specification strategies, diagnostic testing of model adequacy, robust regression, categorical explanatory variables, outliers and influential observations, path analysis, and logistic regression. (4 credits)
This introductory course begins with the logic of causation and correlation in social science. We review the steps of scientific inquiry: literature review, theory development, operationalization and measurement of variables, data collection and analysis, interpretation, and write-up. Experimental and quasi-experimental research designs are treated specifically. Topics include: the types of validity, the “control” of extraneous influences by design or by statistical methods, and the relationship between research design and statistical testing. (4 credits)
Qualitative research is often used in research on complex behavioral systems and in the exploration of a new field of study. Using methods such as participant observation, unstructured interviewing, and the examination of documents, a scholar can form theories that may be later tested by quantitative methods or validated on other samples. Particular attention is given in this course to the methodology of grounded theorizing in multiple case studies and problems of data analysis, interpretation, and generalization. (4 credits)
In this course, students learn the essential elements of developing, analyzing, and validating a survey instrument. The course will explore the options available to the researcher, examine the decisions to be made in designing a survey, and identify sources of error in survey research. The course will also establish how each aspect of a survey can affect its accuracy and credibility, and confront the practical problems of survey research, exploring the theoretical and methodological issues at stake. (2 credits)

Additional Courses

In addition to the required courses and credits listed above, 1 credit of MGT 679 Research Seminar in Management is required every semester.
A student’s faculty advisory committee may require additional coursework as required for the student’s dissertation research.

Qualifying exam and dissertation research (20 credits minimum)

This course provides the time necessary to prepare for the qualifying examination, which demonstrates research competence. It may be in the form of a research proposal, or in another form at the discretion of the program faculty. After successful completion of this examination, students advance to the status of PhD Candidate.(4 credits per block — may be repeated for credit until the qualifying examination is completed)
Having gained doctoral candidacy by completing the comprehensive and qualifying examinations, students prepare a proposal for a doctoral dissertation that is acceptable to their major professor and dissertation committee. (8 credits per semester — may be repeated for credit until dissertation proposal is accepted) Prerequisites: PhD candidate status and consent of the dissertation advisor
Students conduct original research and prepare their dissertations. (8 credits per semester— may be repeated for credit until dissertation is completed). Prerequisites: approved dissertation proposal and permission of the dissertation committee

When the qualifying examination is successfully completed, the student is advanced to PhD Candidate status. When the dissertation proposal is accepted by the faculty, the student is advanced to PhD Researcher status. The amount of time required to complete the dissertation varies according to the research project. A public oral presentation and defense of the dissertation are required, as is acceptance of the dissertation by the dissertation committee, the Graduate School Director, and the Library Director. (See the dissertation manual.)


Congratulations 2022 PhD Graduates!

My experience of My Ph.D. at MIU
“Upon the completion of my Ph.D. degree, I would like to proclaim the accomplishment of an experiment that I have been performing for ten years at MIU—unknown to anyone else. The first year I was a student in the Master in Maharishi Vedic Science program, I saw the suggested daily schedule in a syllabus.

I started my experiment on the suggested daily routine. The hypothesis was that the more one is aligned with the suggested daily routine, the more significant achievement one gains. Early to bed, Early rise to finish the assignments, regular exercise, regular meals, and practicing Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi twice daily. Thanks to Dr. Cathy Gorini and many others who have been my dear companions in this practice. Their company multiplied in me all the incentives to enjoy the practice, which gave me incredible inspiration and strength. I finished the MA in MVS, the MBA, and the Ph.D. in management programs.

Today if there is anything within me or anything I have done that can be called successful, it is just a piece of evidence to prove that the hypothesis is true. The more one is aligned with the suggested daily routine, the more significant achievement one gains. Thanks to this wonderful daily routine suggested by this great university MIU with an exceptional faculty and staff team, under President John Hagelin’s outstanding leadership, together with this fantastic community. Thanks to all!” – Dr. Janet Ho

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