There are a few business school masters degrees which give substantial credit for prior professional quals and experience. I'm thinking business quals here, like accounting, marketing etc. It's mostly the newer universities which offer these courses (note: I'm not having a go at them).

The net result is if you have experience and professional qualifications you can do a part time masters in one year by studying a research methods module and doing a dissertation.

The question is, can this cut down masters be a proper preparation for doing a Phd later. How will it appear to admissions tutors/prospective supervisors? What if you do a really good dissertation?

Not great preparation tbh & sends a signal that you like to cut corners. If you are likely to be competitive for a funded PhD in Business, why not go after Masters scholarships instead and do the thing properly?

On the other hand, I'm not sure whether institutes where you would apply for a PhD would necessarily know what type of masters it was, especially if it was awarded from a reputable university.

But, obviously the less time you spend doing something, the weaker your knowledge, so you may find a PhD more of leap than others who followed a more traditional masters route.

It's on the transcript so very obvious I'm afraid. If you do go this route OP, make sure it's from a business school with external accreditation - EQUIS / AMBA etc.

Treeoflife - I think the point is if you have a prof qualification you already have the technical knowledge, but not the experience of research or academic writing, which is where doing the dissertation might help.

bewidered - good point about accreditation - a lot of the former polys aren't accredited with Equis /aecsb AMBA

Thanks