pathway: Management and Business Studies

My PhD investigates how legal professionals signal authenticity through visual and behavioural non-conformity, and how these signals are interpreted within a profession marked by entrenched inequalities. By analysing appearance, self-disclosure and material artefacts, I will explore how some individuals can deploy authenticity advantageously while others encounter heightened scrutiny or risk. Using multimodal qualitative methods, my research seeks to deepen understanding of how authenticity is negotiated and governed in law-firm settings, and to show how competence and trust judgments are shaped not only by signalling strategies but also by the unequal structures that determine who is permitted to “be authentic.”

Using the context of the FinTech sector, my research aims to investigate how blockchain technology contributes to value creation, considering the regulatory framework that shapes this process. It also aspires to extend beyond FinTech to enhance our understanding of how digitalisation impacts value creation through evolving business models and the implications of relevant regulations, including accounting standards.

My research explores how social commerce (an integration of social media and e-commerce) contributes to the overconsumption of fast fashion, despite growing awareness of its environmental impact. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok integrate entertainment with shopping, driving impulsive, trend-focused purchases among young consumers. This sociocultural phenomena highlights a disconnect between environmental concerns and actual behaviors, rooted in societal pressures and normalised fast fashion consumption. By investigating social commerce’s design elements, I aim to understand how social commerce perpetuates fast fashion and identify what these ingrained consumption norms are that inhibit more sustainable shopping practices.

My research will explore recent changes to consumer behaviour, technology and online culture related to retail investing, to reopen fundamental questions about the nature and meaning of investing in light of increased participation in the financial markets since the pandemic. Specifically, I will examine if this has become more speculative and high-risk, and thus, showing evidence of an evolving relationship with gambling culture.

As a Consumer Culture Theory scholar, I will investigate the area holistically, meaning a view from both production (Industry/state) and consumption (consumers) will be pursued, principally using qualitative digital methods (i.e Netnography; WalkThrough Method; interviews).

 

My research intends to explore the impact of different types of internal carbon pricing methods on different types of organizations, such as companies in different industries and higher education organizations. The research will support the decision-making process for the selection of internal carbon pricing methods and provide target references for different types of organizations to maximize the benefits of internal carbon pricing.

 

I will be looking into Operations Research in the healthcare setting, using the field of human milk banking as a case study, which is an area of particular interest to me. This will include examining the full-cycle of human milk donation, milk banking, and hospital use in the UK.

Looking to better understand, through research, the role that stakeholders play in creating and sustaining gender diversity in the boardroom.  In addition, seeking to contribute to the research on the impact gender diversity has on a firms’ financial and non-financial performance metrics.

Since the evolution of project management as a research discipline, the field has suffered from chronic lack of understanding surrounding the complexity and challenges facing the initiating phase (i.e. project front-end) of major projects. This research addresses that gap through an investigation into the activities completed at the front-end of large-scale projects in order to help better understand, and provide reasoning behind, why this under-researched stage in the project life-cycle can have such a significant impact upon a projects end result.

My name is Katherine Wall. I am a PhD student at the University of Bristol exploring the relationship between land and racial justice in England. I am interested in uncovering the interconnected histories of land and racial injustice; desires and imaginings of a more just future; and questions of what can be done in the present that takes into account these histories and builds towards reparative futures.