Dr Ahmed Shaalan

Dr Ahmed Shaalan

Department of Marketing
Associate Professor in Marketing

Contact details

Address
Birmingham Business School
University House
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Shaalan is an Associate Professor in Marketing and Director of the MSc Marketing program at the University of Birmingham Business School, having joined the institution in July 2022. Before joining Birmingham, Dr Shaalan contributed to the academic community through faculty positions at Cranfield University and the University of Hull.

Dr Shaalan is best known for his expertise in relationship marketing, including internal marketing, and his exploration of informal social networks such as Chinese guanxi and Arab wasta. Additionally, he exhibits a keen interest in tourism marketing and branding.

His impactful research has found a home in esteemed scientific journals, including but not limited to the British Journal of Management, Tourism Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Management and Organizational Review, and The International Journal of Human Resource Management among others.

View his LinkedIn profile

Qualifications

  • PhD Marketing, Hull University, Business School, UK, 2013. 
  • Master of Research in Business and Management (MRes), Hull University Business School, UK, 2008. 
  • Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BCs B.A) (Hons), Faculty of Commerce, Business Administration Department, Tanta University, Egypt, 1999. 
  • Into Director Programme (Leadership Programme), Cranfield University, School of Management, Executive programmes, 2020. 
  • Post Graduate Certificate Academic Practice (PCAP), Learning Enhancement & Academic Practice Department, Hull University, UK, 2015.

Teaching

  • Marketing Communications (MSc Marketing)
  • Research and Analysis in Marketing (MSc Marketing)
  • Responsible Business (MSc Marketing)
  • Research method (undergraduate)

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Shaalan welcomes exceptional prospective PhD students who share research interests aligned with him. For an informal conversation, please send your resume and a research proposal outlining the research question, conceptual and methodological foundations, and potential contributions.

Dr Shaalan applies mixed methods in his research and has considerable experience in using SPSS, SPSS macros, SEM using Amos and PLS software, and Nvivo.  

His current research interests and projects include: 

  • Relationship Marketing and its relations to AI, Agility, Branding, and Culture.
  • Internal Marketing and its implications for employees and customer experience.
  • Informal social networks, including Chinese guanxi and Arab wasta.
  • Chinese and Arab culture
  • Tourism Marketing. 

Over the last 10 years, Dr Shaalan has supervised many MSc and PhD candidates to completion and has acted as an internal and external examiner for more than Twenty PhDs Viva Voce in different Universities in the UK and overseas. 

Some of PhD candidates supervised to completion:

  • Hongfei Liu, “Investigation into Impact of Social Media on Creating Customer Engagement”, PhD 2017 (Now Associate Professor in marketing at Southampton University, UK)
  • Haidy Nasser Ashour, “Examining Consumers’ Intention, Attitudes and Neutralisation Beliefs within Ethically Driven Consumption Episodes” PhD 2020 (Now a Lecturer in Marketing at the London College of Fashion).

Research

Dr Shaalan is interested in investigating relevant and thought-provoking issues that have the potential to yield substantial insights for both academics and industry practitioners.

His research is organised into two overarching, interconnected themes:

Primarily, the first theme lies in relationship marketing, where Dr Shaalan investigates the dynamics of relationships that companies initiate, foster, and maintain with customers over time. Specifically, investigate strategies for initiating, attracting, maintaining, and enhancing relationships to optimize customer experiences and shape the variety of customer mindsets and feedback matrices. Additionally, he endeavours to correlate these relationships with cultural differences, exploring how diverse cultural practices, notably within Chinese and Arab cultures, influence the establishment of these connections. Dr Shaalan has made notable contributions to the existing literature, particularly concerning the impact of different dimensions of relationship marketing on these cross-cultural relationships and matrices.

The second theme extends to understanding how consumers make decisions regarding consumption and the resultant customer experience. Dr Shaalan explores the multifaceted factors influencing these decisions, spanning various aspects of customer engagement throughout the consumption process and what companies can do internally (e.g., applying agility) to improve the customer experience. Dr Shaalan is particularly interested in the intricate implications of AI and branding on customers' practises and decisions. 

Dr Shaalan is enhancing the practical applications of his research by developing research tools that could help managers build and manage their businesses more effectively.

Other activities

  • Guest Speaker in areas of Relationship Marketing and Social Networks at prestigious Universities such as the University of York - UK, Xiamen University - China, the University of Glasgow - UK, the University of Exeter – UK, the University of Hull – UK, and Essex University - UK.
  • Keynote presentations at conferences:
    • The British Academy of Management (BAM) Conference (2014 - 2023)
    • The PhD Experience Conference, Hull University, UK (2014, 2015, 2017)
  • Member of the Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) of the International Journal of Disruptive Innovation in Government (IJDIG) owned by the Prime Minister's Office at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs UAE.
  • Member of the Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) of the "Innovative Marketing" Journal 
  • Teaching Fellow of Advance Higher Education, UK

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Cheng, B, Peng, Y, Jiang, T & Shaalan, A 2024, 'How negative workplace gossip undermines employees’ career growth: from a reputational perspective', International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 36, no. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-02-2023-0234

Dewnarain, S, Mavondo, F, Ramkissoon, H & Shaalan, A 2023, 'A profile deviation approach to enhancing relationship marketing outcomes', Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 1005-1024. https://doi.org/10.1080/19368623.2023.2226641

Shaalan, A, Agag, G & Tourky, M 2023, 'Harnessing Customer Mindset Metrics to Boost Consumer Spending: A Cross‐Country Study on Routes to Economic and Business Growth', British Journal of Management, vol. 34, pp. 442-465. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12596

Cheng, B, Peng, Y, Zhou, X, Shaalan, A, Tourky, M & Dong, Y 2023, 'Negative workplace gossip and targets’ subjective well-being: a moderated mediation model', International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 34, no. 9, pp. 1757-1781. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2022.2029931

Cheng, B, Peng, Y, Shaalan, A & Tourky, M 2023, 'The Hidden Costs of Negative Workplace Gossip: Its Effect on Targets’ Behaviors, the Mediating Role of Guanxi Closeness, and the Moderating Effect of Need for Affiliation', Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 182, no. 1, pp. 287–302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04994-y

Cheng, B, Dong, Y, Kong, Y, Shaalan, A & Tourky, M 2023, 'When and how does leader humor promote customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior in hotel employees?', Tourism Management, vol. 96, 104693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2022.104693

Shaalan, A, Eid, R & Tourky, M 2022, 'De-Linking from Western Epistemologies: Using Guanxi -Type Relationships to Attract and Retain Hotel Guests in the Middle East', Management and Organization Review, vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 859 - 891. https://doi.org/10.1017/mor.2021.21

Shaalan, A, Hegazy, A, Tourky, M, Elshaer, I & Ashour, H 2022, 'Understanding consumer-based brand equity and its antecedents in international and national banks in Egypt', Journal of Marketing Communications, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 38-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2020.1832137

Cheng, B, Dong, Y, Zhang, Z, Shaalan, A, Guo, G & Peng, Y 2022, 'When Targets Strike Back: How Negative Workplace Gossip Triggers Political Acts by Employees', Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 175, no. 2, pp. 289-302. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04648-5

Shaalan, A, Tourky, M, Barnes, BR, Jayawardhena, C & Elshaer, I 2021, 'Arab networking and relationship marketing: is there a need for both?', Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, vol. 36, no. 10, pp. 1793–1805. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-02-2020-0110

Tourky, M, Foroudi, P, Gupta, S & Shaalan, A 2021, 'Conceptualizing corporate identity in a dynamic environment', Qualitative Market Research, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 113-142. https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-01-2018-0003

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Shaalan, A, Tourky, ME & Ibrahim, K 2022, The Chatbot Revolution: Companies and Consumers in a New Digital Age. in A Hanlon & TL Tuten (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Digital Marketing. SAGE Publications. <https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-handbook-of-digital-marketing/book275206>

Liu, H, Shaalan, A & Jayawardhena, C 2022, The impact of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on consumer behaviours. in A Hanlon & TL Tuten (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Digital Marketing. SAGE Publications. <https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-handbook-of-digital-marketing/book275206>

Comment/debate

Shaalan, A, Eid, R & Tourky, M 2023, 'A Rejoinder to: ‘Questioning the Appropriateness of Examining Guanxi in a Wasta Environment: Why Context Should Be Front and Center in Informal Network Research – A Commentary on “De-Linking from Western Epistemologies: Using Guanxi-Type Relationships to Attract and Retain Hotel Guests in the Middle East”’', Management and Organization Review, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 1046-1048. https://doi.org/10.1017/mor.2023.27

Shaalan, A, Eid, R & Tourky, M 2022, 'Erratum: De-Linking from Western Epistemologies: Using Guanxi -Type Relationships to Attract and Retain Hotel Guests in the Middle East (Management and Organization Review (2021) DOI: 10.1017/mor.2021.21)', Management and Organization Review, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 1243. https://doi.org/10.1017/mor.2021.57

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Marketing Strategy •Relationship Marketing •Customer Experience & Customer Journey •Customer Retention •Branding •Internal Marketing •Employees Welbeing •Using AI in Marketing •Tourism Sector