Tony Ward

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

Here are a few of the ideas I am currently interested in but if you have other ideas in within the broad painted scope contact me for a discussion.

Xtrapreneurship (defined as Entrepreneurship and/or Intrapreneurship)

Why do new ideas never go anywhere - The idea behind this project is to explore why ideas for possibly brilliant, innovative new products never get off the ground. Is it a person problem, a control over resources problem, a motivational problem, what and why?

Emotional Intelligence and its link to entrepreneurial intention - This project will explore the influence emotional intelligence might have on either Xtrapreneurial intent and/or Xtrapreneurial self-efficacy.

Does 6 thinking hats really work and why - simple question

Creative self-efficacy - Is there a creative self-efficacy metric and does it have value?

History of entrepreneurship - How has entrepreneurship been portrayed in English Literature? From dirty word to the sexy modern perhaps? Has there been any gender bias in the literature?

What sociological changes has entrepreneurship created over the past few decades?

Gender dimension to intrapreneurship - is there any?

Influence of the CEO's innovation style on organiational intrapreneurship - is there any correlation and lessons to be learned?

The impact of early years upbringing on later life Xtrapreneurial intention

The impact of early stage teaching on later life Xtrapreneurial intention

Are there discontinuities in the development of entrepreneurship interest across the education system?

Engineering Education

On what basis do students make option module choices?  Is choice made on rational future career intention choices or marks chasing or is there no underlying strategy?

Is current engineering education prepared for the student of 2020?  This project is primarily aimed at predicting the technological awareness of the student of 2020 and what they might expect of the engineering education system in terms of teaching and learning technologies.  This project could look at whether the current direction of Virtual learning environment development is going in the right direction.