Recent PhD Graduate

Micael-Lee JohnstoneMicael-Lee Johnstone

Title of Research: Place identity within the retail environment.

Qualifications:
MCom (Hons) (Marketing) The University of Auckland
BA (Film & Media) The University of Auckland
Southseas Film & Video Production Diploma (Auckland)
PhD (Otago)

Area of PhD Research: Consumer behaviour, motherhood, place attachment, retail

PhD completed: 2009

Supervisor: Pro-Vice-Chancellor Sarah Todd
Advisor: Dr. Margo Buchanan-Oliver

Short description of research:

Micael is exploring the social dimensions of the retail environment, more specifically how relationships shape the way consumers use space and assign meanings to place.

An appreciation of how people consume retail space and assign meaning to place will provide marketers with a better understanding of how to design spaces that consumers will enjoy; how to manage consumer resistance to proposed changes to the physical environment; how consumers identify with retail space; and how consumers shape space to suit their needs, especially during times of change – whether these changes are physical (e.g. the location is renovated), social (e.g. the population make-up within the area changes or the relationship one has with others changes), or transitional (e.g. rites of passage, such as motherhood, may change the relationship one has with space).