1. Before a defense of the dissertation proposal may be scheduled:

All members of the dissertation committee (also known as advisory committee) must receive a complete draft of the first three chapters of the dissertation (i.e., introductory chapter, literature review / theory development / hypotheses chapter, and methods chapter), review these chapters, and judge them as ready to be defended. Committee members will have at least one month to review these chapters.
It should be noted that the final version of the first three chapters of the dissertation may differ from the version approved in the dissertation proposal. However, the three chapters submitted at the dissertation proposal stage should represent a best attempt to justify the study, cite relevant literature, propose new theory and hypotheses, and describe the study’s methodology (e.g., population, sample, procedure, instruments, and analysis) prior to data collection and analysis.

The chair of the dissertation committee (also known as major advisor) must receive a condensed version of the first three chapters (i.e., about 15 pages), written in a style similar to that used in Academy of Management Journal articles, and judge it as ready to be circulated to all doctoral faculty and students in the department. This document must be circulated to Management doctoral faculty and students at least one week prior to the defense.

2. After the above two conditions have been met, a letter that has been signed by all committee members must be sent to the Director of the Management Ph.D. Program, who will then schedule the dissertation proposal defense.

3. After the dissertation proposal defense has been held and any final changes have been made in the proposal as specified by the committee, the final proposal will be submitted to the Graduate School with an approval form signed by all committee members. (See the form, "Dissertation Proposal for the Ph.D. Degree," for complete Graduate School instructions.)

This procedure will be effective for all students who have not defended their dissertation proposal by December 1, 1999.