Dr. Ayad's Research Interests

Currently, Dr. Ayad works for Bed Bath & Beyond as Head of Workforce Management (Budgets, Schedules, Labor Standards, Process Improvement, and Industrial Engineering).  Previously, he worked for reputable retailers including Walmart, Sears / K-Mart, and Home Depot in Canada and USA.

REASEARCH INTERESTS AND PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Ayad’s research interests include organization development and change, theory development, consumer behavior, and success in business with focus on retail management.

Dr. Ayad’s papers attempt to bridge the gap between academics and practitioners as well as applied management and theoretical management. His research aspires to transform work into a laboratory which in turn is used to develop management theories.  As such, Dr. Ayad extensively uses action research as well as qualitative and quantitative methods to benefit both academics and practitioners. Dr. Ayad’s Research and publications include:

  • Amine Ayad & Emad Rahim (2016).  The Inclusive Leader: An Applied Approach to Diversity, Change, and Management. Balboa Press. USA

The Inclusive Leader: An Applied Approach to Diversity, Change, and Management is a unique contribution to the complex subject of diversity and leadership. Dr. Ayad and Dr. Rahim build on their vast and diverse experience to translate academic concepts of diversity and inclusion as well as leadership and management into practical roadmap for students, managers, executives, and business leaders.

This book is a renewal and expansion on their Amazon bestselling book Leading Through Diversity: Transforming Managers Into Effective Leaders where they revised and updated the topics of leadership vs. management, diversity and inclusion, change management, collaborative servant leadership, and team building. Further, they added new critical topics to leading in the new era, such as: diverse multinational organizations, and cyborgs and diversity and inclusion. Ultimately, this book goes beyond philosophical arguments of the past to “applied management” and “leadership in action” today and in the future.

  • Amine Ayad & Emad Rahim (2013). Leading Through Diversity: Transforming Managers into Effective Leaders. Common Ground Publishing. USA

Publisher’s Forward:

Leading through Diversity: Transforming Managers into Effective Leaders is a unique contribution to the complex subject of leadership. Dr. Ayad and Dr. Rahim build on their vast and diverse experience to translate academic concepts of leadership into a practical roadmap for students as well as managers, executives, and business leaders. This book is an overview of contemporary aspects of leadership such as change management, diversity, and servant leadership that goes beyond philosophical arguments to “applied management” and “leadership-in-action”.

Dr. Ayad narrates chapters of his own succesful journey of working with leaders who were able to turnaround organizations and deliver profits and shares amazing stories, insights, and leadership success secrets. Dr. Rahim, a survivor of the Killing Fields in Cambodia, brings a unique perspective to the topic of leadership from a servitude point of view. His work as a social entrepreneur, nonprofit executive, public servant and management consultant helps to diversify the leadership conversation and brings social responsibility to the forefront. The combination of Ayad’s and Rahim’s professional experiences and education adds a refreshing twist to a core topic that makes you want to rethink your understanding of what makes a leader and how leadership should be developed in the new millennium.

  • Ayad, A., Rahim, E. (2013). Toward a theory for management success: the role of evidence-based management in the retail industry. Int. J. of Project Organization and Management, Vol.5, No.3, pp.199 – 221

This paper was inspired by a comprehensive review of literature tackling success in the retail industry which revealed scarcity in research attempting to entwine success factors into workable models. Consequently, conceptual analysis was conducted to weave retail success factors into an operational model. As a result, a retail approach towards the principles of evidence-based management was emerged, a new methodology for developing a retail management theory was proposed, and an operational model was crafted.

  • Ayad, A. (2010). Business Process Improvement & Critical Thinking. Journal of Management Development, 29 (6), 556 – 564

The purpose of this paper was to explore the dynamics of Critical Thinking, CT, in contrast with Six Sigma and the “5 Whys” approach that is used by many managers to conduct “Root Cause Analysis” in business process improvements. This research integrated principles of traditional literature review with a reflective

inquiry of a practitioner.   The study found that Six Sigma and its “5 Whys” methodology is insufficient in root cause analysis unless coupled with CT.

  •  Rahim, A., Ayad, A., Zapf, R. (2010) Is Open-Sourcing the future for Project Management? Critical thinking in social networking. International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 2 (2), 109 – 121

The purpose of this mixed, quantitative and qualitative study was to examine the future of project management (PM) in the light of the rapid expansion of online social networks. Qualitative data were extracted from numerous PM virtual platforms and analyzed via the hermeneutics tradition in studying the text and its interpretation. Perspectives of 66 PM experts and PM students were gathered by a survey. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the survey. Findings indicated that the practice of PM continued to evolve where PM concepts and solutions were being shared freely. Copyright regulations as well as the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct were being violated with little or no recourse. This represented opportunities and threats to the science and to the practice of PM.

  • Ayad, A. (2008). Optimizing inventory and store results in big box retail environment. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 36 (3), 180-191

This is a case study that emphasizes the role of people. It proved that different stores within same companies and different departments within same stores deliver different results due, mainly, to human factors: specifically, critical thinking, functional knowledge, and leadership.

  • Ayad, A. (2005). The Cause and Effect of My Quality Journey. Quality Progress, 38 (10), 83

This paper summarizes personal reflections on the concept of quality. It argues that quality is more than data analysis, surveys, methodologies, systems, quality models, organizational structures, strategy development and deployment, standards, audits and certifications. It recapitulates a journey to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union that made me aware of quality as it relates to philosophy, ideology and society.

  • Ayad, A. Predicting Retail Failure: The Missing Elements.  Work in progress
  • Labor and Store Success: An Applied Approach to Optimizing Labor and Store Results