Kristina Auxtova

• Academic Director of Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability
• Undergraduate Programme Lead for Business Management
• 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/3rd Year, Semester 2)
• Course Organiser and Lecturer on 'Advertising: Theories and Practice' (UG Honours, 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.

My research interests revolve around questions of ethics and sustainability in advertising and consumption, particularly within the public and non-profit contexts. 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.

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 rhetoric in the context of advertising regulation, 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. I'm working on a project exploring second-hand consumption through a virtue ethics perspective as well as investigating ways to overcome consumer aversion towards clothing reuse and sustainable consumption practices. I'm also interested in exploring 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 related to my research interests.