Dafydd Cotterell
- Country:
- Wales
- Course:
- PhD Business Management
I am currently a PhD student based within the School of Management, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. My PhD is supervised by Professor Paul Jones, Associate Professor Louisa Huxtable-Thomas and Dr Robert Bowen.
I came to Swansea University as an undergraduate on the BSc (Hons) Business Management degree scheme. Swansea was always the natural first choice, and was a university that I always aspired to attend.
I graduated from my undergraduate degree in 2020. At this time we were at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and the effect of the crisis on business was heavily documented in the media. I felt that dedicating my PhD to evaluating the experiences of retail businesses during the pandemic would make a meaningful and impactful study.
As a society we currently face a range of issues that include Climate Change and volatile International Relations. Both issues have already created challenges for business leaders, and will continue to create challenges as we move into the future. Business has always focused on the importance of profit, and I am sure it will continue to do so. However, the resiliency of a firms profit has now become growingly important. Academic theory in this area is weak and I hope this research will contribute a meaningful additional of knowledge to the growing body of Organisational Resilience research.
My thesis specifically evaluates Organisational Resilience within the context of the retail industry during the Covid-19 pandemic. The thesis has involved interviewing businesses across a range of resiliency including; those that failed, those that survived and those that thrived during the pandemic.
The thesis aims to understand the differing firm behaviours that led to these differing commercial outcomes evaluating the role of social media as an Organisational Resilience enabler.
The best part of studying at Swansea University, and more specifically the School of Management is the people. The faculty at the School of Management are nothing short of fantastic. I have received nothing but support and opportunity as a School of Management student and I would recommend the university to anyone who is considering studying here.
My future plans are to publish my research in a high ranking International Management Journal. I would like to see this research make a valuable contribution to academic discourse in the area of Organisational Resilience and Business Continuity Management more broadly.