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.
Under way: fieldwork openA stage of the method
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 and the integration of sales and marketing
- Milestone
- Extended Research Proposal: 19/20
- The conceptual and literature foundation, graded.
- Status
- In progress
- Enrolled since 2025; dissertation phase ahead.
The method
How a question becomes evidence
Qualitative and interview-led: designed to surface what actually happens inside organisations.
- Step 1 of 4: Foundation
Systematic literature review
Establishing what the field already knows and, more usefully, where it does not.
- Step 2 of 4: Fieldwork
Qualitative expert interviews
Primary evidence from people who have lived cross-border integration first-hand.
- Step 3 of 4: Elicitation
Critical Incident Technique
Anchoring the analysis in specific, real turning points.
- Step 4 of 4: Analysis
Gioia methodology
A disciplined coding approach that keeps interpretation traceable from raw data to theory.
The study
Fieldwork open
The study needs practitioners who were there.
Doctoral research into what actually happens in the commercial organisation in the first year after a cross-border acquisition. Fifteen to twenty-five conversations, including cases where the integration fell short of expectations.
What the study asksFieldwork, not business development. Taking part creates no commercial relationship.
- The conversation
- One pseudonymised conversation, 45 to 75 minutes, with nothing to prepare.
- Who
- People who were at the sales and marketing interface in the first year after a cross-border acquisition: on either side of it.
- Protected
- Pseudonymised at transcription, the key kept apart, and withdrawal at any point.
- When
- Pilots Q3/Q4 2026 · main wave 2027
Publication
Where the work will publish.
- ORCIDWhere the published work will appear.0009-0008-2450-5106 (opens in a new tab)
- The dissertationEM Normandie Business School. Defence expected October 2028, Paris.DBA
- From the research benchThe research track in the journal.
- EventsDoctoral tutorials, conferences and academic events on the calendar.
Contact
Bring the question you're working on.
Research, a guest lecture, or a commercial question.