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Alex Hiller

Alex Hiller

Head of Postgraduate and Executive Education

Nottingham Business School

Staff Group(s)
Department of Marketing School Management Team

Role

Dr Alex Hiller is Head of Postgraduate and Executive Education at Nottingham Business School, with responsibility for the strategic development and operational management of the portfolio of taught postgraduate and executive education programmes. This includes responsibility for portfolio and curriculum development and delivery, student experience, student recruitment, market positioning and external/alumni engagement. He is a member of the School Executive Team and the Chair of the Postgraduate Board of Examiners. Alex has a wealth of experience of programme validations as a panel member and Chair, and external examining experience, both nationally and internationally. 

Alex has over 20 years’ teaching experience across all levels, with main interests in consumer behaviour, marketing ethics, and responsible leadership. His research focuses on ethical consumption, pragmatism and valuation, but research interests also include experiential pedagogy and student engagement.

Career overview

Alex joined the University in 2002 after working as a marketing and management consultant to a range of national and international organisations in both the public and private sectors, with a particular focus on marketing planning and research, service strategy and customer satisfaction research. His earlier career included quality management posts at Hepworth Heating plc and Schlumberger Sema plc, and this was the focus of his early teaching. For the last fifteen years he has been active in teaching and research in marketing, specifically ethical consumption (and consumer behaviour more generally), marketing ethics and responsible leadership.

Alex holds a PhD, a Master’s in Research Methods (Business and Management), and a BA (Hons) in Business and Quality Management, alongside the CIM’s Advanced Certificate in Marketing and a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute.

Research areas

Alex's research interests centre around the role of morality and its contribution to value in consumer behaviour, particularly in the purchase of clothing (the subject of his PhD). Within this he is interested in pragmatist philosophy and its relationship to consumption, and the formation and establishment of habits in consumption. He was a member of the team that conducted research for DEFRA into Public Understanding of Sustainable Clothing, and has worked on an NTU funded project into impacts on waste reduction and job creation through upcycling clothing practices. He is also interested in student engagement and experiential pedagogy.

Alex has published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Studies in Higher Education, the International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management and Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, and is the author of Ethical Consumption: A Research Overview, published by Routledge.

Alex is interested in supervising students in the following areas:

  • Ethical consumption
  • Habituation and identity in consumption
  • Pragmatism and consumption
  • Pedagogy and Higher Education
  • Interpretive methodologies, especially hermeneutics and grounded theory.

Please visit the NTU Doctoral School website for information on doctoral research opportunities at NBS.

External activity

Teaching

  • 2013-2021 – Visiting Lecturer at EDHEC Business School, Lille (3 day marketing ethics course)
  • 2014 – Foreign Trade University, Ho Chih Minh City (half-day marketing ethics course)

Examining

  • 2018-2022: External Examiner, UG marketing modules, University of Birmingham
  • 2017-present: External Examiner, PG marketing modules, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England
  • 2012-2016: External Examiner, MBA, Birmingham City University
  • 2012-2016: External Examiner, MSc Marketing, Leeds Beckett University
  • 2007-2008: External Examiner, BA (Hons) Customer Service Management, UiTM, Malaysia
  • A range of national and international validations as external panel member and Chair

Professional

  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute
  • Chair of the Board of Trustees, Sharewear Clothing Scheme

Research

  • Reviewer – Journal of Business Ethics
  • Reviewer – Journal of Cleaner Production
  • Reviewer - Journal of Marketing Management; Academy of Marketing
  • Committee Member - European Conference on Research Methodology
  • Convenor, 6th International Symposium on Marketing Ethics and CSR (2018)
  • Reviewer / Track Chair – European Business Ethics Network / ABIS Conference (2016)
  • Track Co-ordinator - Product Lifetimes and the Environment Conference (2015)

12 - Responsible Consumption and Production Badge 1 - No Poverty Badge 3 - Good Health and Well-Being Badge 4 - Quality Education Badge