BU Research Blog

Taking us into the sixth week of the PGR Virtual Poster Showcase:

Juliette Hecquet, PhD student in the Faculty of Management with this poster entitled:

‘Exploring yoga as a flow experience: A phenomenological study of contemporary communities.’

Click the poster below to enlarge.

The definition of yoga remains fluid and controversial, creating an oxymoron between the philosophical roots of yoga and physical practice. The majority of published academic research is in medicalised fields; however researchers agree yoga has vast positive outcomes with the potential to be valuable in society.  A lack of clarity exists on what the yoga experience now is, with sparse evidence of, non-medical, qualitative research.  The flow experience and the practice of yoga continue to draws parallel’s from a philosophical standpoint.   Yoga can be regarded as one of the oldest and most systematic methods of producing flow experience but has yet to be researched as one. This interpretative phenomenological research aims to explore the lived yoga experience and the potential flow experience, across contemporary yoga communities.  Videos (vlogs) and in-depth semi-structured interviews will explore the research questions; how yoga participants explain their lived yoga experience and the potential flow experience.

If this research has inspired you and you’d like to explore applying for a research degree please visit the postgraduate research web pages or contact our dedicated admissions team.

Fourth in this PGR Virtual Poster Showcase: 

Lara Christ, visiting PhD student in the Faculty of Management with this poster entitled:

‘Nonprofit brand orientation in emerging countries: Antecedents, barriers and outcomes’

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Considering the importance of the nonprofit organizations in emerging countries, the research aims to develop the elements that constitute the nonprofit brand orientation in emerging countries and identify the antecedents, barriers and outcomes of nonprofit brand orientation.  In this way, the recent literature about the concept was analysed and a theoretical model is going to be proposed. The research is going to be realized in four steps: generation of indicators from an exploratory research, grouping of the indicators in factors, confirmation of the factors and test of the proposed model. We expect to produce a measurement scale of nonprofit brand orientation, antecedents, barriers and outcomes in emerging countries. In addition to the theoretical relevance of a new scale of a concept that has not been approached yet in the marketing literature, the project can contribute to the management of social organizations bringing benefits to society as a whole.

If this research has inspired you and you’d like to explore applying for a research degree please visit the postgraduate research web pages or contact our dedicated admissions team.

Entering week 3 of the PGR Virtual Poster Showcase

Francesca Dean PhD student in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences with this poster entitled:

‘Exploring the experiences of sport psychologists working within elite youth football in England.’

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Successful performance in sport requires the execution of advanced psychological skills in both training and competition. Although the importance of sport psychology is now widely acknowledged, there is a need for greater clarity regarding (a) what is actually delivered under the banner of sport psychology, and (b) the needs of those receiving psychological support. One sport which is increasingly focusing on the role of psychological development is football—this is occurring via the English Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan. As the first stage of a PhD programme, this study aims to examine the current knowledge and provision of sport psychology services delivered to youth performers within professional football academies in England. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with six sport psychology practitioners working within professional academies in order to gain insight into their understanding of their role, their perception of (sport) psychology, and their experience of delivering psychology services at the academy level.

If this research has inspired you and you’d like to explore applying for a research degree please visit the postgraduate research web pages or contact our dedicated admissions team.

Next up in the PGR Virtual Poster Showcase:

Kelsie Fletcher, PhD student in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences with this poster entitled:

‘The momentum of grounded theory: Nursing research and new perspectives in disaster management’.

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The purpose of this poster is to explore the background of Grounded Theory evolution to its application in disaster management and nursing theoretical development. It will examine why Grounded theory remains popular and useful in developing professional knowledge in healthcare research and, most importantly, why it is the methodology of choice for understanding the experiences of nurses working in a disaster region. Explicit links will be made to offer clarity of its appropriateness in this field of research and this will be enhanced by reflections of the researcher.  Nurses possess a unique opportunity to develop understanding of emergency management, public health and planning, to enhance potential responses to a disaster. Grounded theory aims to support research in subjects with little or no literature available (Charmaz 2014; Birks and Mills 2015). Due to the researcher’s personal experience in disaster management provision, constructivist grounded theory is considered to be the most appropriate.

If this research has inspired you and you’d like to explore applying for a research degree please visit the postgraduate research web pages or contact our dedicated admissions team.

Kicking off the PGR Virtual Poster Showcase:

Festus Adedoyin, PhD student in the Faculty of Management with this poster entitled:

‘Energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and tourist arrivals to small island economies dependent on tourism.’

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In less than two decades, the global tourism industry has overtaken the construction industry as one of the bigger polluters, accounting for up to 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Consequently, research into the causal link between emissions and the tourism industry have increased significantly focusing extensively on top earners from the industry. However, few studies have thoroughly assessed this relationship for small island economies dependent on tourism. Hence, this paper aims to investigate the causal relationship between CO₂ emissions, real GDP per capita, and the tourism industry. The long-run relationship is investigated using Pooled Mean Group ARDL Model. Prior to this, we conduct the Pedroni and Kao cointegration tests, the ADF-Fisher and Im, Perasan Shin unit root tests. We also examine causality using the Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) Panel causality tests. Our study seeks to contribute to the energy-growth-tourism debate as well as the feedback mechanism among the variables.

If this research has inspired you and you’d like to explore applying for a research degree please visit the postgraduate research web pages or contact our dedicated admissions team.