Julia Darmenova is a 4th year PhD student at the centre of Development studies, University of Cambridge. My research interests lie in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility in Kazakhstan. She works on Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility and the case of Small and Medium Enterprises in a Kazakh context. She considers evidence on the evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the context of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Kazakhstan. She is particularly interested in specifying contextual differences to understand how and why a certain phenomenon (CSR) may or may not necessarily be adapted and incorporated into the local Kazakhstani business in the same way as in countries with established free economy markets. Her research is inspired by an argument that CSR understanding as well as practice may significantly differ in the context of Kazakhstani SMEs. Prior to becoming a PhD student she worked in the corporate sector, where she was primarily concerned with commercial strategies, revenue and profit maximization to stimulate business growth. She was also was in charge of activities relating to marketing, sales, and customer relations. Besides that she closely worked with development and implementation of cross-functional decisions to achieve the companies’ objectives.
