Entrepreneurship in Children

All successful applicants may elect to apply for a range of competitive PhD scholarships we offer, guidance for which can be found here: https://www.bath.ac.uk/campaigns/?meta_label_and=managementfunding&?f.Department+or+group%7CX=Doctoral+College

Self funded applications will also be considered.

Overview of the research: Some children are entrepreneurial: are children natural-born entrepreneurs?

Is childhood entrepreneurship developed or destroyed by social, economic and educational systems, or does it either develop or decline as a natural process of maturation?

Nobody knows the answers to these and related questions as little is known systematically about the nature and extent of entrepreneurial propensity or activity amongst children or how entrepreneurialism evolves as children grow to adulthood. If you find these kinds of questions intriguing and would like to help develop and answer them as part of a structured programme of doctoral training and original scholarship, please get in touch with me direct.  

The project: Anecdote and observation suggest children as young as five are entrepreneurial. Some children trade with each other, some sell services and goods to parents, close family and neighbours, others launch businesses selling to wider markets just like adult entrepreneurs, but while still school age. However, systematic research into all aspects of childhood entrepreneurship has been limited. We currently know very little about entrepreneurship in children from either an empirical or theoretical perspective, and the development and testing of propositions in the area is nascent.

If you would like to develop a PhD project to shed light on any aspect of childhood entrepreneurship, then do please get in touch. If your interest is strong and you have an appropriate blend of qualifications, aptitudes and motivations, you will join a supervisory team lead by Professor Edmund Thompson to develop a specific avenue of research relating to a facet of childhood entrepreneurship that both interests you and that the team finds compelling and worthwhile. Your PhD training, supervision and research will be directed to ensure that an original contribution to knowledge is made through the production of professional scholarly papers.   

Preferred start date: October 2023

Application criteria: You should have at least a 2:1 at undergraduate level (or its international equivalent). Your background can be in any subject, not just management.

1. A concise and candid explanation of why you want to pursue a PhD.

2. A clear statement of what career you plan to develop, and how you will do so, after completing your PhD.

3. A rationale for why you are interested in the particular topic/project area you propose researching.

4. An original, non-generic proposal of the kind of research you would like to pursue in terms of one of the projects listed below, drawing as necessary on extant literature.

5. An explicit indication of the theoretical and empirical approaches you think might be appropriate (and that you’d personally like to deploy), drawing on extant literature.

6. A statement of the kinds of scholarly training, practical research and ethical issues you think you’d need to consider in order to succeed in completing your PhD effectively.

7. A full CV.

How to apply: https://www.bath.ac.uk/guides/how-to-apply-for-doctoral-study/