Lecturer at University of Otago
Loic (Pengtao) Li is a graduate of the PhD programme with the Department of Marketing at the Business School.
Key facts
Programme: Doctor of Philosophy
Department: Marketing
During my doctoral research and Graduate Teaching Assistant experience I
got to work and engage with basically every colleague in my department, which
was a real benefit as each one has a different style. It was a wonderful
experience and a big reason why this journey was so worthwhile.
“I did some research and found that the University of Auckland had a very good reputation and highly regarded researchers working in my field of interest. Also my friend did a working holiday in New Zealand and those beautiful photos got me attracted.
“My doctoral research topic is customer engagement and actor engagement – how customers as well as other business actors are interacting and engaging with each other within service networks. I’m interested in the dynamics and valence of engagement. Specifically, I’m looking at how engagement spreads and evolves in networks, and the interplay between positive and negative engagement.
“I had a perfect combination of the very abstract-thinking supervisor Rod Brodie alongside the very detail-oriented Biljana Juric, and I enjoyed working with them very much. The relationship was a real journey. Rod’s high-level ideas were sometimes difficult to grasp in the beginning but the additional support from Biljana really helped to break down the concepts and put us on the same page.
“Everyone in the Marketing department is very supportive and helpful to PhD students, leading by example and offering incisive feedback and comments. I also built some great relationships with other PhD students from across the Business School through the shared office space, and made some really good friends.”