Kristina Auxtova

• Academic Director of Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability (2024 - present)
• Course Co-Organiser and Lecturer on 'Marketing & Climate Change' (UG Honours, Semester 1)
• Course Co-Organiser and Lecturer on 'Marketing for Net Zero' (PGT - MSc Marketing)
• Course Co-Organiser and Lecturer on 'Business Research Methods II' (UG 2nd Year, Semester 2)
• PhD Supervisor
• MSc Dissertation Advisor 
• Undergraduate Dissertation Advisor
• Member of Centre for Business, Climate Change, and Sustainability (B-CCaS)

I joined the University of Edinburgh Business School in May 2022 following my previous posts at University of Dundee (2019-2022) and University College Cork (2018-2019). Prior to this, I completed my PhD at the University of Edinburgh (2019), an MGE (Master Grande École) in International and European Business at EM Strasbourg, and a BA (Hons) in International Management and Intercultural Studies at the University of Stirling. In 2022, I have also become a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

During, and in between my studies, I worked as a language tutor (English and French), an interpreter and a translator, a product manager and digital marketer in the context of medical equipment e-commerce, and also as a research intern in the Scottish Government. Reflecting my interest in the non-profit sector, I've spent several years volunteering for various nonprofit organisations, particularly Barnardo's and Oxfam.

Since joining the University of Edinburgh Business School, and reflecting my interest in Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustainability (ERS), I have held the role of the ERS Champion for Research (2023-2024) and am now the Academic Director of ERS. I have also held the Undergraduate Programme Lead role for Business Management (2022 - 2025).

My research interests are diverse, but fundamentally revolve around questions of ethics and sustainability in advertising and consumption. Specifically, I study advertising ethics and regulation, advertising rhetoric, social and charity marketing, and second-hand consumption, but I am also interested in areas of consumer vulnerability, emotions, and the role of societal and cultural norms in consumption practices. I have a particular interst in the public and non-profit contexts exploring how marketing can be used here as a force for good as well as how consumers can be supported in consuming ethically and sustainably.

• My work on advertising thus far focused on developing a nuanced and in-depth understanding of shocking, offensive, and controversial advertising within the public and nonprofit sectors. My PhD thesis adopted stakeholder theory as an overarching frame and specifically explored the regulatory processes of such advertising tactics with an emphasis on interpretations of these by different stakeholder groups involved, including the public and nonprofit organisations, advertising creatives, regulators, and audiences. Currently, I am exploring the rhetoric in controversial advertising, specifically working with Aristotelian notions of rhetoric and building on a methodological approach developed in my doctoral work. I am also researching the persuasive strategies of advertising self-regulation as a model for regulating the advertising industry, and how deodorant advertising historically used stigma for developing market legitimacy.
• My work within the sustainability domain focuses mainly on second-hand consumption and the charity shop context, contributing more widely to work on supporting reuse and the circular economy. Building on a project exploring second-hand consumption through a virtue ethics perspective, I am currently investigating the work involved in supporting second-hand consumption and the ways to overcome consumer aversion towards clothing reuse and sustainable consumption practices. Additionally, I work on projects focused on the pedagogies for integrating ethics and sustainability within the classroom.

Methodologically speaking, I am a qualitative researcher and tend to employ various types of discourse analyses (critical discourse analysis, rhetorical analysis), and work with documentary and historical / archival data, interviews and ethnographic research.  

I am keen to receive PhD applications in areas closely related to my research interests.