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Dr. Nadeem Akhtar

About

A teacher who researches, and a researcher who practises

Fifteen years of business and HR education, with a research record, now taken into practice.

Profile

I am an Associate Professor of Business Management with more than fifteen years of experience in graduate and executive education, research and program leadership. My work sits where people, organisations and learning meet: strategic HRM, organizational behavior, leadership and entrepreneurship.

I coordinated the Bachelor of Science in Business Management (HR) program at Yanbu Industrial College and led it through ACBSP accreditation and SHRM alignment. I now work to bring HR education and HR practice closer together. HRThink is where that happens: simulations, tools and certificates that let learners practise real decisions before they make them for real.

How I teach

I teach HR the way it is practised. Students do not only read about selection, performance reviews or workforce data; they make those decisions in realistic cases, see how their choices compare with expert benchmarks and learn from the feedback.

I care about the person behind the score. Good teaching is patient, specific and fair, and it leaves learners more confident than it found them. I ask every learner for feedback, because I would rather hear what to improve than guess.

Research and teaching feed each other. Questions from my research, such as why skill mismatch hurts and which HR practices help, shape the cases I build. What learners do in those cases shows me where the real difficulties lie.

See what learners say

Research

My research asks how organisations can get the best from their people, and what stops them. I look at what motivates and sustains employees, how a mismatch between skills and jobs shapes wellbeing and performance, what supports people who start their own businesses, and how innovation turns into results.

I write for scholars and practitioners alike, and I take the questions that arise in the field back into the classroom as cases and simulations.

15+Years teaching and leading programs
20+Peer-reviewed journal articles
900+Google Scholar citations
11h-index

Verify on ORCID and Google Scholar.

People and motivation at work

What makes employees committed, engaged and well: empowerment, ethical leadership, psychosocial safety and the practices that sustain them.

Skill mismatch and HR practice

How over- and under-skilling affect wellbeing and performance, and how HR practices compensate for, conceal or complicate mismatch.

Entrepreneurship

The social and structural support behind entrepreneurial intentions, including immigrant and early-stage entrepreneurs.

Innovation and performance

How innovative capability, knowledge management and service-innovation readiness translate into firm and institutional performance.

Selected publications

Recent peer-reviewed work, newest first. Each title opens the paper or a search for it.

  1. 2025
  2. 2024
    Elevating industry IQ: the dance of empowerment, resourcefulness and innovation in petrochemical realms

    Akhtar, N. · Marketing and Management of Innovations, 14(3), 56-64

    Innovation and performance
  3. 2023
    Exploring the influence of social and structural support on entrepreneurial intentions among South Asian Canadian immigrants

    Akhtar, N. and co-authors · Asian Academy of Management Journal, 28(2)

    Entrepreneurship
  4. 2023
    Unlocking the potential: the impact of innovative capability on process, product and market innovation and firm performance

    Akhtar, N. · Marketing and Management of Innovations, 14(2), 19-33

    Innovation and performance
  5. 2022
    What motivates the most? Money or empowerment: mediating role of employee commitment to organizational performance

    Akhtar, N. and co-authors · Journal of Organisational Studies and Innovation, 9(2)

    People and motivation at work
  6. 2022
    Service innovation readiness of academic institutions: mediation of ethical leadership and employee satisfaction

    Akhtar, N. and co-authors · Asia-Pacific Social Science Review, 22(4)

    People and motivation at work
  7. 2021
    How does psychosocial safety climate affect burnout among Malaysian educators during the COVID-19 pandemic?

    Teoh, K. B. and co-authors, including Akhtar, N. · Asia-Pacific Social Science Review, 21(4)

    People and motivation at work
  8. 2021
    Service innovation readiness of health institutions during COVID-19: a perspective from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Akhtar, N. and co-authors · Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 8(8)

    Innovation and performance

A further 7 manuscripts are under review at international journals. The full list is on Google Scholar.

Editorial work

I founded SEISENSE, a research platform that publishes high-quality, open-access business research.

Peer review service

I serve on the review boards of:

  • International Journal of Organizational Analysis
  • European Journal of International Management
  • International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business
  • Psychological Reports

Career

  1. 2024 to present Associate Professor of Business Management Yanbu Industrial College, Saudi Arabia

    I lead research, curriculum and program strategy alongside teaching, and coordinate the Bachelor of Science in Business Management (HR).

    • Hold Fellowship of Advance HE (FHEA, UK).
    • Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the SEISENSE Journal of Management.
    • Design and deliver blended, hybrid and asynchronous courses.
  2. 2024 to present Founder, HRThink hrthink.org

    An independent platform that connects HR classroom learning with real HR practice.

    • Scored recruitment and performance-management simulations with verifiable certificates.
    • An ATS-friendly resume builder.
    • Built for instructors who want practical, benchmarked assessment.
  3. 2010 to 2024 Assistant Professor of Business Management Yanbu Industrial College, Saudi Arabia

    Taught Strategic HRM, Organizational Behavior and Entrepreneurship, using real business cases.

    • Program Coordinator, BSBM-HR (2016 to 2022): secured ACBSP accreditation and SHRM alignment certification.
    • Led course redesign to align business education with industry trends and Saudi Vision 2030.
    • Served on the department council and program evaluation committee.
    • Mentored students on capstone projects and research assignments.
  4. 2009 to 2010 Assistant Professor COMSATS University, Pakistan

    Taught MS and MPhil students in Employee Relations and Fundamentals of Management.

    • Supervised graduate research projects and advised students on academic and professional growth.
  5. 2009 PhD in Business Administration Karl-Franzens University of Graz, Austria
  6. 2001 MBA in Management Information Systems Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan

Interested in working together?

Collaboration, appointments or projects. References are available on request.

Get in touch