I lecture in business studies and employability, and I would say there's a number of parts to that answer:

1) There IS a belief that those coming from humanities lack skills (at least compared to science-y people) in numerical and quantitative methods. Although there's a lot of people who know nothing about numbers or even 'meaning' in business, it's still a prejudice, that those who are heavyweights in business, are those who can crunch numbers. I think that this is the biggest killer when it comes to looking at prospective students - it happens with sciences too, but it is almost inevitably assumed with humanities.

2) There is also a belief, from my experience, that the product of a humanities course is of less value than the product of science. That's probably less a business thing, and more a societal thing. Although businessmen, especially those in academia, should be able to 'value the intangibles', most of the time they haven't got a clue. Something from the sciences almost always looks like engineering can turn it into something useful, so it wins easily whether it should or not.

3) Business is not one 'homogenous' blob. There are areas far more likely to value the humanities, areas particularly in marketing and PR, corporate journalism and communications, human resources, etc. where communications and peoples skills are probably valued more. I would expect that you would find it far easier to excite people in these areas rather than the stuff on strategy and finance. Of course, the same issue applies to organisations. Businesses like museums and arts charities, etc. may love arts and humanities graduates, whereas a medical or engineering firm may well ask, why?

4) I think there is a lot of criticism of academia in education now anyway. The MBA which used to be the mark of the expert manager has been eroded by a) popularity, b) organisations not wanting to pay the premium salary the qualification attracts, and c) some serious questions about what the actual benefit an MBA brings. I would say that PhDs are extremely unlikely to be valued, in any subject (even management), since they are considered remote from outcome. I know a lot of people that will simply bin an application with PhD on it on the basis that they are going to be unhelpful to the organisation through unattainable expectations, theory when action is due or just irrelevance to most organisations objectives. The DBA, as a professional doctorate, is still not really established enough or proven yet, and I suspect is unlikely to ever be in anything but academic circles.

5) Analogical reasoning and creativity is a real premium at the moment, and is probably a far easier sell (and potentially a much better developed talent) in the field of humanities than it is in traditional routes in. This is probably because we all get taught the same thing, so persuasive cases for other things is much welcomed, especially in 'enlightened' organisations.

6) What I always say to my students who are looking at employability (and these are the employers of the future, MBAs not far off qualifying) is to suppose that they are faced with two candidates, one who has all the qualifications, experience, etc. in the world and another who has none. The real question is not the number of certificates, or the employment record or anything in fact other than: can the person do the job, will the person do the job and does the person fit with the values of the organisation. The rest is really only helpful in evidencing one of those three, and I would never choose an MBA over a PhD in humanities, if the latter met those criteria and the former didn't. That's pretty obvious, so your 'handicap' is that most people actually have useless systems that encourage the wrong people to apply, be selected and inappropriate evidence to be disproportionally weighted. I think this is a huge area of weakness in the adoption of best practice in recruitment, but it only takes looking at a graduate who has nothing but Cambridge or Harvard, for instance, on their CV to know that there are people out there that will make a decision based on that one fact alone, regardless of whether or not the candidate meets any other specification. Or worse, factors like race, sex, sexuality, etc. sabotaging the entire process. This is clearly not something itself that is anywhere near sorting out.

It is interesting your institutional affiliation, Anna, as I have been dealing with some of the staff at the Polish Academy of Sciences regarding the development of their MBA and DBA programmes. They have not been particularly receptive on either the academic or applied side. I would be very much be interested in publishing in this area and looking at a better relationship with the Jagiellonian University in terms of the development of a more innovative programme. It may well be that the place to incubate a relationship between the humanities and business, given the track record of your institution in education, innovation and the wider disciplines, would be there, and not PAS. I think a DBA that means something to the world is due development soon, if we are to really move the field forwards. Be very open to discussion on this.

Jonathan, I agree with points 1 & 2. it is also true form my point of view. But I am thinking... if numerical and quantitative methods are really necesary in humanities?

Of course it depends on discipline, but when it comes to learning outcomes in PhD curriculums, it seems that not a lot...

According to projects and colaboration: what particularly are you interested in (subjects/ areas)?

Sorry, could you clarify what you mean?

Also, out of interest, would you consider 'theoretic linguistics' and 'anthropology' 'humanities'? Just trying to define some parameters.

Hi again, Anna. Last year I was participating in a European Project, whose acronym was POCARIM. We could study the population of the PhD Holders in Social Sciences and Humanities, so you could check our first reports on that issue: http://www.liv.ac.uk/law-and-social-justice/research/pocarim/resources/

If you have any question around this project, just e-mail me. Best.