Business PhD (Doctor of Philosophy): Research areas

In the UK Research Excellence Framework 2014, two-thirds of our research activity was classified as 'internationally excellent' or 'world-leading'. This places Kingston Business School among a set of esteemed universities and in the top 50 in the country.

The quality profile for Kingston Business School shows high levels of ‘world-leading' and ‘internationally excellent' research, with our research impact being particularly strong: on average, almost 90% of the Business School's impact was found to be 'world-leading' or 'internationally excellent'.

You will receive one-to-one tuition for your research project from international experts: we have a vibrant research community that includes staff, research students and associates from government, industry and commerce. Their work varies from pioneering academic research to highly focused consultancy for clients; they publish their work in a wide range of books and journals and receive substantial external funding from both private and public sector bodies including HSBC, Nokia, and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Kingston's Faculty of Business and Law has a number of research centres with a track record in high-quality research. Our research centres include:

• Small Business Research Centre
• Centre for Research in Employment, Skills and Society (CRESS)
• Institute of Leadership and Management in Health (ILMH)
• Asia Business Research Centre
• Business-to-Business Marketing Research Centre

Staff and students at Kingston Business School disseminate their research in journals, at conferences and in a series of occasional, working and business papers published by the School. You can obtain papers disseminated by the Small Business Research Centre by contacting Val Thorne.

The Faculty has a number of seminar and workshop series reflecting the high level of engagement with our staff, students and external stakeholders, ensuring that we are at the forefront of our field.

These are normally open to all but please check the pages for further details. They include:

• Kingston Business School runs regular research seminars and events that enable students and Business School staff to exchange ideas, research findings and test research papers with a view to obtaining helpful feedback. View our calendar for the all our upcoming research seminars and events.

• Law School research seminars: a monthly series on contemporary legal issues which often attracts outside speakers.

Our commitment to excellence is reflected in the international reputations of staff, both academically and with their respective industry organisations. External sponsors such as HSBC Bank, Nokia, the Soros Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) provide substantial and ongoing funding. The Faculty of Business and Law benefits from:

• the international reputation of our staff;
• supported secondments to industry and government;
• ongoing external funding from private and public sector sponsors; and 
• membership of EUDOKMA and EDAMBA (European Doctoral Programmes Association in Management and Business Administration), an international consortium for the training of postgraduate research students.

You can view the full range of research papers published by Kingston Business School academics via the Kingston University Research Repository.