You have heard of Executive MBA. Have you heard of EXECUTIVE PHD ?!!! Business PhDs are very popular in UK, Europe & Australia. Slowly becoming popular in North America too...

From the link: PhD Programs for Executives Gain Traction. New doctoral programs in business geared to working executives help many develop on-the-job research skills or shift into teaching

Extract (Executive PhD, just like executive MBA!!!):
Less than a dozen accredited business schools offer these types of business professional doctorates in the U.S., according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), one of the leading accreditation agencies for business schools, which tracks doctoral degrees programs. In the past few years, interest in programs like these has grown as high-level managers seek a more rigorous academic experience than the typical executive education classes or executive roundtables offered at business schools. "The main reason these programs are springing up in the U.S. is there seems to be a market. There are more and more executives willing to pay a fairly high tuition to take this kind of program on, so now it becomes a legitimate business model for schools to offer."

The new executive doctoral program, which costs about $100,000 for three years, are required to come to the school's Atlanta campus for a three-day residency at the school. So far the school has been able to attract executives from IBM (IBM), Google (GOOG), and Citigroup (C) who are, on average, 45 years old and have 16 years of management experience. The program has about 38 students enrolled so far.

Students take classes that teach them how to conduct formal academic research, and later the school pairs them with a faculty adviser who works with students on their 100-page dissertation, which they are expected to submit to an academic journal for publication. Unlike typical doctoral programs, where students look for jobs in academia after graduating, almost all of the participants in the Robinson program plan to go back into the business world. "The primary purpose of the program is to develop better executives,". "It hits the sweet spot between business schools and the business world."

Professional doctoral programs are more prevalent in Europe and Australia than in the U.S., says T. Grandon Gill, a professor at the University of South Florida's College of Business in Tampa. The U.K. has at least 16 doctorate of business administration programs, and at least 20 such programs were created in Australia from 1993 to 2005, says Gill, who co-wrote a journal article on the programs last year. The programs are also popular in Germany, where an estimated 58.5 percent of executives hold doctoral degrees, compared with just 5.6 percent of CEOs in the U.S., according to a study cited in Gill's article. The programs have not caught on to the same extent in the U.S. because of widespread faculty resistance to starting these programs.