Photo: University of Texas at Arlington Photograph Collection (CC BY 4.0)
Job description
Beyond lecturing, business professors design and regularly revise their own curricula, then write, administer, and grade exams, or supervise teaching assistants who do. Many split their time between the classroom and research, publishing findings in academic journals or books and staying current with their field through conferences and professional organizations. They also keep regular office hours to advise students on coursework and careers, and collaborate with colleagues on shared teaching and research questions. Reaching this role typically requires a PhD or DBA, though an MBA paired with real industry experience can open the door to practitioner-track teaching positions.
Pros
- High upside earning potential, up to $209k
- Faster than average projected job growth (5.7% over the next decade)
- Flexible schedule built around teaching, research, and office hours rather than a fixed shift
Cons
- Above-average hours, expect more than a standard 40-hour work week
- Requires a PhD or DBA, or an MBA plus significant industry experience, a long path to entry
- Career often depends on publishing research in addition to teaching duties
A typical day
The 9:30 strategy lecture runs as a case discussion — sixty undergraduates dissecting a real company's collapse, the professor cold-calling with the Socratic patience the discipline inherited from law — followed by office hours where a student's startup idea gets both encouragement and the hard questions investors would ask. The research afternoon belongs to a working paper on supply-chain resilience: regressions rerun, a co-author's revisions merged, a journal's revise-and-resubmit letter answered point by careful point. Threaded between: a dissertation committee meeting, an executive-education session taught for practicing managers at twice the energy, and letters of recommendation for MBA applicants. Practitioner-track faculty tilt the mix toward teaching and consulting; research faculty toward publication. Both live the field's distinctive privilege — studying commerce while shaping the people who will run it.
Tasks at the job
- Keep abreast of developments in the field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional organizations and conferences.
- Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, and course materials and methods of instruction.
- Conduct research in a particular field of knowledge and publish findings in professional journals, books, or electronic media.
- Compile, administer, and grade examinations, or assign this work to others.
- Maintain regularly scheduled office hours to advise and assist students.
- Collaborate with colleagues to address teaching and research issues.
Workplace & working conditions
Work happens indoors in a climate-controlled setting.
There's a regular, moderate amount of time pressure, and you're expected to exercise significant independent judgment day to day. The work is highly structured, following set procedures.
Education necessary or common
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) or a DBA; an MBA plus industry experience supports some practitioner-track positions
Common college majors
Licenses & certifications
- CPA (for accounting faculty, valued)
- CFA (for finance faculty, valued)
Career path
Related fields
Courses to take
- Economics (AP Micro and Macro)
- AP Statistics — business research is empirical
- Accounting
- AP English Language
- AP Calculus AB/BC
Clubs, activities & competitions
- DECA or FBLA — leadership and competition
- Investment club
- Tutor peers in math or economics
- Start or run a small venture — the classroom credibility of having done it
First steps you can take now
- Read one Harvard-style business case and write the decision memo it asks for
- Sit in on a college business lecture
- Interview a business professor about the PhD path versus the practitioner path
- Follow one company's quarterly earnings cycle and connect it to what a strategy course would say
