Anna Jenkins

Business Administration

Who are you and where are you from?

I am from Australia. I was born in Melbourne and grew up in Adelaide. I studied Economics at Adelaide University and towards the ends of my studies I met a Swedish boy on exchange. The plan was to move to Sweden for a year and nearly 11 years later I still live here!  

How did you decide to become a doctoral student? And why did you decide to do it at JIBS?

I have always really liked learning new things but I never really liked being told what to do so I thought studying for a PhD would give me the flexibility and freedom to research what interests me most.

I chose to study at JIBS after moving by chance to Jönköping. I really liked the city and the university’s focus on entrepreneurship so I decided that JIBS could be a great place to study. I am very happy that this has been the case.

What are your main research interests?

Very broadly I am interested in trying to understand the motivations behind individuals’ decision making and why individuals can respond very differently to similar experiences. In my dissertation research I have focused on understanding how entrepreneurs interpret and respond to the failure of their firms. I focused on learning, re-entry into self-employment, and emotional recovery as important adaptive outcomes. In my future research I plan to continue to research how entrepreneurs learn from failure and setbacks and the role personality characteristics play in this process. I am also interested in understanding how firm failure can influence entrepreneurs’ and their families well-being. Theoretically I like to use theories from cognitive and social psychology and empirically I like to use a range of methods.

What is the best thing with working at JIBS?

There are lots of great things about working at JIBS but I think the best thing is my really friendly and smart colleagues.