Dr May Thet Nwe
- mthetnwe at bournemouth dot ac dot uk
- Lecturer in Leadership and Management
- D167 Dorset House
Biography
Dr. May Thet Nwe is a leadership scholar who earned her PhD from the University of Essex. Her PhD thesis investigated the phenomenon of leadership through the lens of identity and ideal. She is a qualitative researcher who used narrative inquiry research methodology for her doctoral research project. Prior to her PhD, she completed an MBA from the University of Portsmouth.
At Bournemouth University, she lectures on Organizational Leadership. She is also involved in teaching teams for Leadership Essentials, Managing People, and Research Projects. Additionally, she supervises students in their final-year research projects. Her previous academic appointment was at the University of Essex, where she worked as an Assistant Lecturer while doing her PhD, teaching Leadership and other Management subjects.
Before embarking on her academic journey, she gained substantial experience in management and leadership from a young age, starting her career in a private tourism enterprise and then as marketing manager at AMBO Hotel Group in Myanmar... She then served her native country as a gazetted officer at the Department of Road Transport Administration in Myanmar before doing an MBA in the UK. She worked at the Solent NHS Trust Headquarters in the UK until she started her PhD at the University of Essex. Beyond academia, she is a literary enthusiast with a number of short stories, poems, and articles ( nearly 50 in total) published in Myanmar.
moreResearch
May’s doctoral research investigated the phenomenon of leadership through the lens of identity and ideal. Taking a context-sensitive, social constructionist approach, it examined how leadership is understood and practised in a specific national and organizational setting. It explored the meaning of leadership in a secluded non-Western cultural context and contributed to the academic literature with a unique cultural perspective that can enrich scholars’ understanding of leadership in diverse global contexts. It also uncovered the hidden treasury of traditional leadership wisdom, originating from the Buddhist Pali Canon literature that has remained untapped in academic literature. It takes the concept of 'Worldly Leadership', which embraces the multiplicity of ways of leading and different ways of thinking about leadership in different parts of the world. It is an exploratory, qualitative study that employs a narrative inquiry research methodology taking the research philosophy of hermeneutics.
May's main research interest focuses on leadership, specifically the various ways of thinking about and practising leadership in different parts of the world. She is interested in conducting further research in collaboration with native leadership scholars and practitioners in different cultural settings, as well as supervising students who are passionate about understanding leadership in their own native lands. Her future research agenda includes unearthing hidden leadership wisdom and philosophies in different societies around the world to contribute essential knowledge to the academic leadership literature.