Vahid J. SadeghiAston Business School
Illustrated portrait of Vahid J. Sadeghi

From a glass factory to a doctoral school

Industrial engineering in Iran, quality assurance in manufacturing, two ventures of my own, a doctorate in Turin co-supervised from Canada, and now strategic oversight of doctoral research at a British business school. The route explains the research question.

2011–2013 · Iran

Two factories, one city

After a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering I joined Kaveh Glass Group, latterly as quality assurance manager. The work produced an observation that took years to recognise as a research question.

Firms in the same city, facing identical currency chaos and identical export restrictions, behaved in completely different ways. The explanations available at the time described the average and missed everyone in it.

B.Sc. Industrial Engineering, Tafresh University, 2011

2013–2014 · Iran

Two ventures of my own

In 2013 I co-founded a business distributing packaged food, and in 2014 a consultancy advising firms on branding and marketing.

I later stepped back from both, and my co-founder continued them.

M.Sc. Business Administration, Payame Noor University, Karaj, 2013

2016–2019 · Turin, with Regina in Canada

A doctorate on one’s own terms

A funded Ph.D. in Business and Management at the University of Turin, co-supervised with the University of Regina in Canada. Its title, on internationalisation “on one’s own terms”, is a fair summary of everything since.

A post-doctoral research and teaching fellowship followed in Turin’s Department of Management.

Ph.D. Business and Management (International Entrepreneurship), University of Turin, 2018

2019–2021 · Coventry

Teaching strategy in a cathedral city

Assistant Professor of Business Strategy in the School of Strategy and Leadership at Coventry University, and Associate Director of the B.A. Business Administration.

2021–2025 · Aston University, Birmingham

Programmes, then doctoral students

Assistant, then Associate Professor of International Entrepreneurship. Director of the M.Sc. International Business and the B.Sc. International Business and Management programmes.

From 2023, Director of the Ph.D. Programme for the College of Business and Social Sciences, overseeing more than 150 doctoral students, and founder of the PGR Hub.

2025– · Aston Business School

Director of Research Degree Programmes

Following a college restructure, directing research degrees at Aston Business School: the Ph.D., the MSc by Research and the DBA.

The role spans admissions, progression, examination and researcher development.

How the programme developed

Each stage asked a narrower question than the one before, moving from the country to the person making the decision.

Phase one1Phase two2Phase three3Phase four4NextNext

1Phase one

Institutions and internationalisation

Comparative work on how home-country institutions shape entrepreneurial internationalisation, using cross-national survey data. Established the empirical base but treated entrepreneurs as broadly interchangeable.

2Phase two

Micro-foundations

Turning to the individual entrepreneur, through managerial capabilities, dynamic capabilities, knowledge hiding and digital transformation. The focus moves from the firm and the country to the person making the decision.

3Phase three

Cognition and culture

Specifying the transmission from national culture to individual cognition, and showing it operates selectively. The Journal of International Business Studies and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal papers sit here.

4Phase four

Signals and audiences

Moving to digital platforms where signals and their reception are both observable at scale, and relocating signal cost from the sender to the receiving audience.

→Next

Experiments and institutional variation

Experimental designs for the attentional mechanisms, internationalisation mode choice across 25,200 digital ventures, and how AI and digital credibility dynamics vary across institutional contexts.

Where the pathway has passed through

Each highlighted country carries an appointment or degree, a funded project, empirical fieldwork, a doctoral candidate supervised, or an invited lecture. Tap or hover over a country to see the tie.

Recognition

Each frame opens the original evidence: a certificate, the published record or the announcement.

Vahid J. Sadeghi at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Copenhagen, 2025
Best Paper AwardEntrepreneurship Division, Academy of Management, 2025 and 20262025 proceedings · 2026 proceedings
Academy of International Business Certificate of Recognition presented to Vahid J. Sadeghi as a Best Conference Reviewer, Manchester 2026
Best Conference ReviewerAcademy of International Business, Manchester Annual Conference, 2026Certificate (PDF)
Aston Business School announcement naming Vahid Sadeghi in the 2025 Stanford and Elsevier top two percent of scientists
World’s Top 2% ScientistsStanford and Elsevier list, 2022 to 2026, single-year citation impactRanking profile · Aston announcement
Top Cited and Top Viewed ArticleRisk Analysis, Wiley, 2025
Top Cited and Top Viewed ArticleRisk Analysis, Wiley, 2025The article
Cover of Aston Business Review Issue 03, Summer 2026
Research featureAston Business Review, Issue 03, 2026, on “Alliances with frenemies”The review (PDF)
Advance HE certificate confirming Vahid Jafari-Sadeghi as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, March 2021
Senior Fellow, Higher Education AcademyAdvance HE, 2021Certificate