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Dr Catherine Ashworth staff profile image

Dr Catherine Ashworth

Senior Lecturer

With a practitioner background at an international level, a strategic marketing PhD and around 15-years of knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) consultancy experience as lead academic, Catherine has won many Innovate UK bids and led countless organisations to growth.

Dr Catherine Ashworth staff profile image

About

With a practitioner background at an international level, a strategic marketing PhD and around 15-years of knowledge transfer partnership (KTP) consultancy experience as lead academic, Catherine has won many Innovate UK bids and led countless organisations to growth.

Dr Catherine J Ashworth, PhD is a senior lecturer in global and strategic marketing and an experienced knowledge transfer academic at Leeds Business School.

Synopsis
  • +30 years working in or with business at a senior level
  • +15 years Knowledge Transfer and Consultancy experience
  • +20 years in Higher Education with significant experience in teaching Strategic Marketing, Global, International and Entrepreneurial Marketing
Experience

Catherine has over twenty years experience in academia. She has developed both specialist and hands-on practical knowledge in several business-critical areas, including Marketing Project Management, Marketing Communications, Business to Business/Industrial Marketing, plus Consumer Psychology and Behaviour.

Catherine has won awards at international academic conferences for her research work both in strategic marketing and e-business strategy both individually (e.g., e-retail marketing success) and collaboratively (e.g., social media and football), and contributes to several leading scholarly journals as an expert independent peer reviewer

Catherine has extensive prior experience in Industrial and Strategic Marketing, as both a practitioner and Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Consultant. She has considerable in-depth experience of successful industry engagement having led both corporate and government funded consultancy projects that have enabled business transformation and growth, including leading a National award-winning Knowledge Transfer project.

Catherine also led subject-specific contribution to the highly acclaimed development and management of the Online Foundation Degree in Retail developed for Tesco Plc, which involved a significant level of work-based learning, enhanced with intensive university-based workshops for developing future retail management talent. This project has now been rolled out across the UK to several large retail organisations, and Internationally to assist in retail development across the wider business domain.

Successful projects in many industry sectors

Catherine's broad industry experience includes:

  • Acoustics
  • Anti-Terror/Perimeter Security
  • Chemicals
  • Clothing
  • Environmental Conditioning
  • Fire Protection
  • Furniture
  • Print and Media
  • Retail and Online retail

Research interests

Catherine's career has largely focused on practical and strategic interventions to leverage efficiencies and growth resulting in economic and employment generation across several companies. However, she has found time to publish in the areas of small business/e-retail development, social media strategy and more recently, Influencer Marketing.

Publications (3)

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Journal article

Instafoodie: A comparative analysis of the food influencers’ community of practice on Instagram

Featured 21 December 2020 Internet Research Emerald
AuthorsMiguel C, Clare C, Ashworth C, Hoang D
Journal article
‘With a little help from my friends’: exploring mutual engagement and authenticity within foodie influencers’ communities of practice
Featured 18 March 2022 Journal of Marketing Management38(13-14):1-26 Informa UK Limited
AuthorsMiguel C, Clare C, Ashworth CJ, Hoang D

The aim of this paper is to analyze the dynamics of mutual engagement within the foodie influencer communities of practice created via Instagram. The study is based on 20 in-depth interviews with foodie Instagrammers. Findings demonstrate that unlike other communities of practice, rather than competing among themselves, foodies learn from each other, exchange tips, help those starting out in the field and attend events together. Close collaboration also leads to the formation of strong friendship bonds. However, findings show that whilst authenticity of content is deemed important, elements of influencer engagement are artificially orchestrated within their own community of practice. These findings have implications for marketing professionals in terms of evaluating influencersÊ» engagement authenticity and the selection criteria they consider with regard to targeting appropriate and specific influencers to work with.

Journal article
Self-branding and content creation strategies on Instagram: A case study of foodie influencers
Featured 16 August 2023 Information, Communication & Society27(8):1-21 Taylor and Francis Group
AuthorsMiguel C, Clare C, Ashworth CJ, Hoang D

The purpose of this study is to better understand the processes and procedures adopted by micro-influencers to create ‘Instagrammable’ content. It is based on 17 in-depth interviews with foodie micro-influencers based in London and Barcelona. Interview data was complemented with participant observation in restaurants or cafes. This paper makes three original contributions. Firstly, the study expands the understanding of the concept of ‘instagrammability’ by approaching it from the perspective of influencers creating content to satisfy and/or growan audience. Secondly, it illustrates how two dominant factors drive influencers content creation process: the self/audience focus content branding orientation. The the audience-focus content development process varied drastically, with some influencers being very conscious of responding to their audiences’ needs whereas others maintained first and foremost a very strong self-focus’. However, even for the influencers who were the most responsive to their audiences perceived wishes, a sense of self-focus was maintained as an anchor point in all developed content, often linked to a passion for a certain type of food. Thirdly, this paper maps and describes the behind-the-scenes content creation process adopted by micro-influencers, including four stages (1)Content Planning,(2)Media Gathering, (3)Editing,and (4)Publishing, which was followed by an engagement phase.This study offers a timely contribution to better comprehending the content creation cycle adopted by micro-influencers by using foodie influencers as a case study.

Current teaching

  • Global Marketing
  • Strategic Marketing
  • Practical Marketing

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Dr Catherine Ashworth
24086
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