Business and Management

The NWSSDTP Business and Management Pathway provides an unrivalled research base in Business and Management in the UK in terms of both depth and breadth, delivering excellent research training and supervision for Doctoral students across all three institutions. Academic faculty have an excellent track record of publishing in internationally renowned, world leading journals helping to shape the debate within their fields. Particular research strengths include international business and strategy, organisational sustainability, entrepreneurship, leadership, organisational diversity and equality, corporate governance, employment, public management, services, health and innovation.

The research agendas within the pathway speak directly to ESRC priority areas: ‘Productivity’, ‘Innovation in health and social care’, ‘Climate change’, ‘Trust and global governance in a turbulent age’, and ‘New ways of being in a digital age’. The size and breadth of the pathway ensures that the training needs of a wide range of students can be met while also retaining a critical mass, ensuring a cohort feel for even the most specialist provision. During their PhD, Business and Management students from all three institutions present papers at major international conferences, publish papers in prestigious high-ranking journals and go on to follow their PhD with positions in leading Business/Management Schools throughout the world.

Programmes eligible for NWSSDTP funding

N.B. Master’s programmes can only be funded as part of a 1+3/2+2 Studentship

Lancaster University

University of Liverpool

University of Manchester

For information on how to apply for funding, please visit our How to Apply page.

Pathway Representatives

Contact details for Business and Management Pathway Representatives at each institution can be found here

Current Business and Management NWSSDTP students

MartaMarta Ferri (2017 Cohort)

Plastics and the Circular Economy

My research is on plastic waste and the Circular Economy and it focuses on the process of valuation of these materials according to an ANT approach. This is conducted through the study of how different stakeholders, logics and materials are engaged and mobilised into pre-competitive market-based initiatives. My research is based on two case studies that look at the valuation process of plastic post-products at a local and global level.

EvaEva Herman (2017 Cohort)

The Causes and Consequences of Precarious work for Gender in Greater Manchester

This project is a case studentship co-supervised by Oxfam and the University of Manchester. Drawing on case studies of the care and hospitality sectors in Greater Manchester it seeks to understand how different dimensions of precarious work are shaped, gendered and the effect they have on workers, by investigating the interactions that lie between state, employer and household levels.

JacobJacob Boult (2018 Cohort)

Variety in capitalism and experiences of precarious-flexible work in Britain and Germany

Variety in capitalism refers to institutional differences in regulations and buffers, and that capitalism is a common system across these differences. The bearing of these commonalities and differences on experiences of precarious-flexible work will be explored through narrative interviews with workers in temporary agency, fixed term, and variable hours work across four cases within manufacturing and services in the UK and Germany.

NWDTC-DTP Rose LogoChloe Spence (2018 Cohort)

Promoting Innovation in Mental Health Service Design: An Adaptation of the Trajectory Touchpoint Technique.

The Trajectory Touchpoint Technique (TTT) is a new service design technique, which employs a rich pictures methodology to elicit detailed customer experience narratives. It is the aim of this research to develop and effectively utilise an adapted version of the TTT for mental health service evaluation and innovation, through ongoing development, evaluation, and refinement of an adapted tool.

Lee Stringer (002)Lee Stringer (2018 Cohort)

ICT workers across distinct evolving work contexts: a study of the challenges and tensions

The purpose of this study is to understand the work and employment challenges and tensions, from the expansion and evolution of (web-based) digital labour platforms (DLP) for Information and Communications Technology workers and management who work and manage through DLPs. Please see the link for further information: https://onlinefreelancingresearch.wordpress.com  

16C63ADB-301B-4B21-B6A5-7F43F525C501Katie Thompson (2018 Cohort)

The Edited Self: An Exploration of Digital Body Modification

My project explores how digital representations of bodies (and the practices and processes surrounding these) – impact on sense of (and relations to) the self. Specifically, I am examining the sociocultural significance of augmented reality in the form of beautifying ‘filters’ on social media sites such as Instagram. I am using qualitative methods such as Netnography and narrative interviews.

STE_1697Rosie Harrison (2019 Cohort)

How do paid carers manage emotionally intense tasks or events within the domiciliary care setting?

The emotions inherent within the care setting tend to be ignored in societal debates around paid care, as it is assumed that payment negates any emotional toll. The positive and negative emotional aspects of carework for both the client and the carer are obviated. However, for the client to feel ‘cared for’, the carer must manage these emotional aspects skilfully.

Lee Francis (2020 Cohort)

Cadbury’s Revisited

10 years ago, Cadbury’s was acquired by Kraft in a hostile takeover. Today, customers still vent their frustrations online. My research seeks to understand why some consumers just can’t let it go.

Adam McCarthy (2020 Cohort)

Emerging technologies and sustainable development: How can responsible research and innovation impact the emergence of synthetic biology in the Global South?

Synthetic Biology is an emerging technology with disruptive potential, with the potential to impact  sustainable development. However, it is important to asses this technology and develop policy to ensure comprehensive benefit and to avoid unforeseen negative externalities. This project aims to explore these themes in the context of the Global South using a mixed methods approach.

Eleni Chiarapini (2020 Cohort)

Exploring the connection between institutions and immigrant entrepreneurship in the host country

Migration challenges countries due to the integration difficulties faced by migrants when moving abroad. The obstacles to find paid employment push them to establish businesses for their community and occasionally the common market.  The study, by employing an institutional perspective and applying a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods aims to analyse how different institutional environments and policies foster immigrant entrepreneurship. 

Mengmeng Tan (2020 Cohort)

Corporate risk prediction of AI industry using machine Learning method

The operation of AI industry has greater uncertainties, such as larger investment in R & D, more rapid technology update, and higher uncertainty in capital recovery periods or profit models. My research will build a new financial risk prediction model of AI firms through the use of a data-driven machine learning method with appropriate quantitative and qualitative criteria.

Joanna Gregory-Chialton (2019 Cohort)

Work-Family negotiations and daily decision-making in same-sex couples

My project explores how lesbian mothers and gay fathers’ experience and manage work-family tensions on a daily basis and how this shapes their experiences and challenges. Specifically, how the absence of socially ascribed gender roles impacts the participation of male and female same-sex couples within the labour market in terms of motherhood penalties and fatherhood premiums.

Julia Marcet-Alonso (2019 Cohort)

Living the brand? A study of employer and employee branding in the UK fashion retail sector.

My research seeks to narrate the perceived work experience of customer-facing employees in the fashion retail to present their views of the employer brand, and how they make the brand values their own to later represent the brand in front of the customers. I also look into the branding practices of retailers online to understand how they communicate the employer brand to attract and retain talent.

Hannah McAleavey (2021 Cohort)

Through sickness and health? A qualitative investigation into the decision to work whilst sick and the consequences for employee well-being

My research will employ qualitative interviews and diaries to explore the decision-making process behind presenteeism and the consequences of working whilst sick on well-being. I hope to utilise a within-person design to understand the intra-individual processes driving the decision to work whilst sick, along with understanding more about how and when presenteeism can be a sustainable choice.

Ragnhild Nordset (2020 Cohort)

Relational Leadership and Mental Wellbeing

Growing awareness around wellbeing has brought attention to organizational contexts lacking appropriate support for its workers. In a world that champions productivity, authentic support for employee wellbeing often falls to the wayside if not visibly linked to organizational outcomes. This research considers elements that impact employee mental health and especially how relational leadership may enable better support for their wellbeing.

Natalie Taylor (2021 Cohort)

Sustainable solutions to the intractable problems of food insecurity

The project will aim to explore the capacity of social enterprises to act as a non-stigmatising, financially viable alternative to traditional charity-based methods of food aid such as food banks. The project works in partnership with Can Cook, a local social enterprise tackling food insecurity and food poverty at scale in the North Wales region.

Lydia Hubbard (2022 Cohort)

Public experiences of service change in primary care: Focusing on the spaces and places of service delivery

Focuses on understanding how transforming primary care provision is perceived and experienced by the public. The project aims to unpack the socio-symbolic exchanges that take and make place between patients and health professionals at sites of primacy care. The project will engage with a wide range healthcare stakeholders, using spatial ethnographies across primary care sites in Northwest of England.

Business and Management NWSSDTP Alumni

Martyn Bradley (2017 Cohort)

University of Liverpool

Website: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/management/research/phd-students/organisational-behaviour/

Email Address: Martyn.Bradley@liverpool.ac.uk

Contemporary Fathering and Competitive Lawyering: An Ethnographic Study of How Fathers Balance Their Work Family

21st Century fatherhood is characterised by an increased expectation for fathers to be involved parents. At the same time no such change is reported in organizational literature with many organizations retaining breadwinner assumptions regarding father employees. This grounded study investigates how fathers act in negotiating and balancing these contrasting worlds in what may be considered an extreme case study.

Thomas Davis (2017 Cohort)

University of Liverpool

Website: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/management/research/phd-students/business-history/

Email Address: t.davis@liverpool.ac.uk

Remembering Liverpool: A twice entrepreneurial space 

My research investigates the role of entrepreneurship in enacting social change in communities. I am particularly interested in the development of post-industrial inner-city districts, of which there are several in Liverpool. I am especially interested in the enabling/constraining role of history in this process, and I analyse this intersection of places, history and entrepreneurship through the works of Henri Lefebvre.

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