Currently, Dr. Ayad leads a market for Walmart in Ohio. Previously, he worked for reputable retailers including Sears and Home Depot in Canada and USA.
REASEARCH INTERESTS AND PUBLICATIONS
Dr. Ayad's research interests include organization development and change, theory development, 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:
- 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 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. (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 integrates 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 indicate the practice of PM continues to evolve where PM concepts and solutions are being shared freely. Copyright regulations as well as the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct are being violated with little or no recourse. This represents opportunities and threats to the science and to the practice of PM.
- Towards a theory for success in the retail industry: The role of Evidence Based Management. Under consideration for publication
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 & Fitzgerald. Towards a theory for e-retail success. Under consideration for publication
This study empirically tested “web-weaving” theory for e-retail success (Ashworth, Schmidt, Pioch & Hallsworth, 2006). This mixed qualitative and quantitative study built on the work of Ashworth, et al. (2006) and Doherty and Ellis – Chadwick (2006). Based on “web-weaving” theory and literature related to e-retail success factors, hypotheses were developed and tested using stepwise regression in a sample of 50 successful e-retail businesses. Interviews were then held with CEOs from participating companies in order to develop a better, more nuanced understand of the findings. Study found that E-retail success significantly related to “web-weaving” (adjusted R-squared = 0.144; p <.05 ). The study provided the first empirical test of the impact of web-weaving on e-retail success. It also filled a gap in the research and offered guidance for practice to enhance the probability of e-retail success.
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