The doctoral community
Doctoral awards, supervision and graduation.
I supervise PhD and DBA candidates at Aston Business School and lead its research degree programmes. This page sets out the topics I supervise, who I supervise now, and how to apply.
I welcome doctoral applications in four areas. Each connects to one of my research stories.
How entrepreneurs adopt AI, how they make claims about their AI capability, and how investors, customers and other audiences judge those claims as ventures start and grow.
Knowledge management, digital resilience, and the routes small and medium-sized firms take into international markets.
How cultural orientation shapes the opportunities entrepreneurs recognise and their decisions to expand abroad.
How entrepreneurial firms move in and out of foreign markets: strategic oscillation, de-internationalisation and re-internationalisation.
Strong proposals name a clear question and the data that could answer it. I am glad to discuss fit before you apply.
Aston lists its application deadlines, entry requirements, fees and funded studentships on its how to apply page. Programme details: the Aston Business School PhD and the Aston DBA. The DBA suits executives with a practice problem worth researching in depth.
Ten current doctoral candidates, with topics spanning strategic deception and trust in AI, generative AI and decision-making under automation bias, behavioural biases in SME internationalisation, knowledge hiding and de-internationalisation, ethnic minority business growth in the West Midlands, and supply chain resilience in Qatar. Two graduates have moved into academic posts, at Birmingham Newman University and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
I also supervise DBA candidates at Aston and Portsmouth, examine doctorates internationally (UK, India, Spain, Australia, New Zealand), and supervise undergraduate and master's dissertations every year, principally on the M.Sc. International Business programme.
Director of Research Degree Programmes at Aston Business School since 2025, with strategic oversight of the Ph.D., the MSc by Research and the DBA. The remit covers admissions, progression, examination and researcher development policy. Previously Director of the Ph.D. Programme for the College of Business and Social Sciences, overseeing more than 150 doctoral students across three schools, and founder of the Aston Business School PGR Hub for cross-departmental doctoral collaboration.
Doctoral awards, supervision and graduation.