Research

The test behind the work.

Alongside the commercial work, I am pursuing a DBA at EM Normandie on what happens to sales and marketing after a cross-border acquisition. It is the same question under a stricter standard: test what is true before building on it.

The method Evidence, traced end to end.
Systematic literature reviewmapping what's already known
Qualitative expert interviewsevidence straight from the field
Coding & synthesisstructured, Gioia-style analysis
Cross-border sales integration: the day after the deal.

Why a doctorate

The part that keeps it honest.

The operating work produces patterns: things that look true across deals, teams and markets. The doctorate is where I test them. A claim I would make in a boardroom has to stand before a committee, against the literature and the evidence.

The field is cross-border M&A and the integration of sales and marketing: the operational day after a merger, when two commercial organisations are supposed to become one. A material share of deal value is won or lost there.

The work is in progress, and the findings stay in the lab until they are tested and published. What's on this page is the standard I hold the work to.

Opinion is cheap. Research is where the ideas have to earn it.

The doctorate

The academic half, in brief.

A practitioner doctorate run in parallel with commercial work, with evidence doing the deciding.

Programme
Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA)
Institution
EM Normandie Business School

Triple-accredited: EQUIS · AACSB · AMBA.

Field
Cross-border M&A & sales–marketing integration
Milestone
Extended Research Proposal: 19/20

The conceptual and literature foundation, graded.

Status
In progress

Enrolled since 2025; dissertation phase ahead.

Research ID

Where the published work will appear.

The method

How a question becomes evidence.

Qualitative and interview-led: designed to surface what actually happens inside organisations.

01 Foundation

Systematic literature review

Establishing what the field already knows and, more usefully, where it does not.

02 Fieldwork

Qualitative expert interviews

Primary evidence from people who have lived cross-border integration first-hand.

03 Elicitation

Critical Incident Technique

Anchoring the analysis in specific, real turning points.

04 Analysis

Gioia methodology

A disciplined coding approach that keeps interpretation traceable from raw data to theory.

Bring the question you're working on.

Research, a guest lecture, or a commercial question.

A short note is enough to give it shape.

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