Key details
Dr Tendai Douglas Svotwa
Senior Lecturer in Management
Dr Tendai Douglas Svotwa is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Greenwich, Executive Business Centre, in the Greenwich Business School. He joined the University in April 2023, having taught in Botswana Universities for 10 years. Before joining academia, Dr Svotwa worked in the commercial banking sector and is a seasoned banker with more than 12 years of experience working in the corporate sector, mainly in the Treasury Department as a Chief Dealer and Treasury Manager. Dr Svotwa is also a renowned academic who has taught at tertiary institutions since 2009, starting his teaching career at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. He was a Senior Lecturer at Botho University, Graduate Studies and Research Department, Gaborone, Botswana, where he taught and supervised postgraduate students. Dr Svotwa has taught the following courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels: Business Management, Management, Strategic Management, Marketing Management, Business Research Methods, Organisational Behaviour, Management of Change, and Human Resources Management. To date, he has graduated more than 40 undergraduate students in their research projects and more than 35 MBA students in their dissertations. Furthermore, Dr Svotwa conducted training on Business Leadership to Executives in some organisations in Botswana. He is currently an External Examiner for MBA International Business at Canterbury Christ Church University, United Kingdom, and an External Examiner for MBA and PhD at the University of Namibia (Namibia Business School). Furthermore, he was previously an External Examiner for MBA and PhD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), University of Johannesburg (South Africa), Cape Peninsula University of Technology (South Africa), North-West University (South Africa), Botswana Open University and Botswana Accountancy College. Dr Svotwa is a reviewer of several journals, including the Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education (Emerald). He was also a Guest Presenter for the North-West University, Business School, for the MBA Summer Study School, 26 January 2022, where he presented a paper on: The role of African Business Schools in Promoting Entrepreneurship: Prospects for the future. In June 2022, he was a member of the Scientific Committee for the International University of Rabat, Morocco, International Conference on Business Practices in a VUCA world, June 23-24, 2022. He is also an accomplished researcher, having published extensively in peer-reviewed journals. His research interests are in the fields of strategy, leadership, general management, entrepreneurship, family businesses and marketing management. To date, he has published 16 journal articles, 10 book chapters in Springer, Taylor and Francis, as well as Juta Publishers (South Africa), and has presented 10 papers at local and international conferences. Dr Svotwa has presented at local and international Conferences such as Botswana, Egypt, Morocco, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, and France. He is a member of The European Academy of Management (EURAM), Africa Academy of Management (AFAM), and a Life-time member of the Golden Key International Honour Society. He is also the Country Director for Botswana for the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association (HETL). In 2017, he was one of the two African scholars selected to represent Africa for the first time in the history of EURAM, in Rabat, Morocco, at the PhD Doctoral Colloquium: EURAM Early Career Colloquium (EECC), facilitated by EURAM. In 2022, he was part of a 10-member team engaged as a Co-Country Investigator (CCI) in Botswana for the Global Leadership and Business Effectiveness (GLOBE) survey focusing on organisational culture, trust, and leadership in more than 110 countries across the globe. Findings from the research are yet to be published. |
Awards
In March 2017, Dr Svotwa was selected as one of the two final year PhD African scholars to represent Africa for the first time in the history of the European Academy of Management at the 8th European Early Career Conference (EECC) to represent Africa at the Doctoral Colloquium, in Rabat, Morocco. In April 2019, Dr Svotwa was invited to join the prestigious Golden Key International Honour Society as a Lifetime member, because of his performance in his PhD thesis since he was in the top 5% of PhD candidates in South Africa in 2018.
Recognition
Dr. Svotwa is a member of the African Academy of Management (AFAM); A member of the European Academy of Management (EURAM); a member of the International Higher Education for Teaching and Learning (HETL), and the Country Director for Botswana (Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association). He is also a reviewer of several academic journals, including the Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education (Emerald).
Research / Scholarly interests
Dr Svotwa’s research interests are in the field of strategy, leadership, general management, entrepreneurship, family businesses and marketing management. One of the important aspects he finds exciting about research is that of collaborating with fellow researchers who share the same interests with him, and who are working in other Universities. As a collaborative team, they have focused on contemporary business and societal issues, especially from the marketing and entrepreneurial perspective. His research has been valued by other researchers, as evidenced by the increasing number of google citations for his work. Regarding what might be achieved in future, Dr Svotwa is currently working on sourcing of external grants, which will have a positive effective on the University in terms of securing additional income streams, as well as improving business operations, which would benefit society at large, based on the findings of the empirical research.
Key funded projects
We are currently exploring the possibility of securing research funding with fellow University of Greenwich Lecturers in collaboration with selected scholars in Africa.