This weekend wrapped up whirlwind several months with a graduation party to celebrate 7 years of work to finally finish my Ph.D.!
I started this journey back in 2019 when I was a full time lecturer at a university. I never imagined this journey would continue through a divorce, multiple back surgeries, a global pandemic, and multiple job changes… but I endured. In addition to so many skills in research and theory development, I’ve learned so much about my own tenacity and perseverance to complete hard things.
The Doctoral and Master’s Commencement at UNC Greensboro was different than any other prior graduation I’ve experienced. Even though your walk across the stage is less than a minute, your doctoral hooding ceremony is still on stage, by yourself, and in front of 7000 people. It’s highly personal and symbolic of the final step in turning you lose to walk across the rest of the stage on your own to now teach others.
It has been such a journey and I’m very grateful to my advisor Dr. Vladislav Maksimov for the thoughtful guidance and support in completing my dissertation: Internationalization of Digital Platform Firms: An Exploration of Resource Orchestration, Platform Accessibility, and Cultural Distance.
The ProQuest document is still processing. I’ll post the link to all 300 pages when it’s fully published.
Next, I’m looking forward to turning this dissertation into some published work to share all we’ve uncovered about digital platforms, resources, and culture!