Dr Ambi Ambituuni

Dr Ambi Ambituuni

Department of Management
Associate Professor in Project Management

Contact details

Address
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Ambi Ambituuni is an Associate Professor in Project Management and a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. His multi-disciplinary research work focuses on the intersection between systems and society mainly from two approaches. On one hand, his work focuses on the optimization of sociotechnical systems from the perspectives of sustainable governance, risk management and projects in society. On the other hand, he takes a critical perspective on the role of actors within systems and organizations. Ambi has published in many 3 and 4 star Chartered ABS journals and remains an active member of the project management community at national and international levels.

Qualifications

  • PhD, School of Civil Engineering and Geoscience (Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK)
  • MSc Project Management (Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK)
  • BSc (Hons) Building (Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria)
  • PG Cert in Learning & Teaching in Higher Education (Coventry University)
  • NEBOSH National Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety
  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
  • Member Associate for Project Management

Biography

Dr Ambi Ambituuni received his undergraduate degrees from Ahamdu Bello University, Zaria and proceeded to undertake an MSc in Project Management from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen after a few years working in the construction and telecommunications industry in Nigeria. He received his PhD from the School of Civil Engineering and Geoscience from Newcastle University where he worked on the risk management of petroleum transportation and distribution in Nigeria. 

Ambi is experienced in the management and leadership of teaching and learning and has held vital roles in the development of faculty-wide strategies. He has in-depth programme enhancement, leadership and development experience at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He oversaw many accreditation processes on various programmes. His industry experience also spans the oil and gas, and transport industries. He is a recipient of the prestigious Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) for both MSc and PhD and has won numerous research and executive training grants as the PI or Co-I from prestigious funders like NERC, AHRC, PTDF and DCMS. Ambi moved to University of Birmingham in 2022 and continues working very closely with industry in his research and teaching activities.

Teaching

Ambi’s teaching is research informed. He has been the module leader of project management courses for UG, MSc, MBA and Executive MBA programmes. He is always interested in the gamification of pedagogy and the use of computer simulations to provide employability skills.

Postgraduate supervision

Ambi has supervised over 60 MSc and MBA dissertations and 2 PhD students to completion. His current PhD supervision interests focuses on the broad areas of: Project and energy transition; Sustainability by and for projects; Transparency and anti-corruption; Projectification and governance issues; Managing risks in a safety-critical environment; Governance of extractive industries and the intersection with livelihoods, communities and conflict risks; Optimization of construction and operation of safety-critical assets; Risk resilience, recovery, reliability and systems integrity.

Research

Research interests 

Ambi’s research interest covers Project and energy transition; Sustainability by and for projects; Transparency and anti-corruption; Projectification and governance issues; Managing risks in a safety-critical environment; Governance of extractive industries and the intersection with livelihoods, communities and conflict risks; Optimization of construction and operation of safety-critical assets; Risk resilience, recovery, reliability and systems integrity 

Current projects 

Ambi is currently working on an AHRC funded research project that aimed at to developing an interdisciplinary network of academics and practitioners to innovatively combine livelihood studies, storytelling and risk management to develop an inclusive culturally informed livelihood recovery measures for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria? 

Through the public performance that took place in November 2022, Ambi and his team have generated and provoked ongoing community discourse on the plight of the IDPs. The team have created an active network of CSOs and members of the press to advocate for governmental and non-governmental interventions. 

The next stage of the project will leverage on this network to develop policy propositions and a risk management framework of interventions 

 

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Tyllianakis, E, Kolade, O, Ambituuni, A, Ogunde, O, Oyinlola, M & Abolfathi, S 2025, 'A behavioural risk perspective to plastic waste management: insights from Nigerian SMEs', Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 534, 147086. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.147086

Ambituuni, A 2025, 'Infrastructure transparency initiative and anticorruption in public infrastructure projects: a principal-agent perspective to the antecedents that enable (or hinder) the effectiveness of transparency', Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-02-2025-0273

Ambituuni, A, Oyinlola, M, Ajala, O, Sule, H, Esfahbodi, A & Barrow, D 2025, 'Mechanic Village Business Networks and Circular Economy Practices in the Automotive Industry', Business Strategy and the Environment, pp. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.4122

Ambituuni, A, Amoozad Mahdiraji, H, Enang, I & Zhang, Y 2025, 'Project control practices to enable sustainable project management', International Journal of Managing Projects in Business .

Ambituuni, A, Ajala, O, Schroeder, P & Oyinlola, M 2024, 'Catalysing environmental action: a governance framework for enhancing individual participation in sub-Saharan Africa's plastic circular economy', Environmental Management. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-024-02044-7

Jellason, N, Ambituuni, A, Adu, DA, Jellason, J, Qureshi, MI, Olarinde , A & Manning, L 2024, 'The potential for blockchain to improve small-scale agri-food business’ supply chain resilience: a systematic review', British Food Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-07-2023-0591

Ejiogu, A, Ambituuni, A & Ejiogu, C 2021, 'Accounting for accounting's role in the neoliberalization processes of social housing in England: a Bourdieusian perspective', Critical Perspectives on Accounting, vol. 80, 102053. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2018.07.002

Ejiogu, A, Ejiogu, C & Ambituuni, A 2021, 'Corruption fights back: localizing transparency and EITI in the Nigerian “penkelemes”', Governance, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 785-802. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12530

Ambituuni, A, Azizsafaei, F & Keegan, A 2021, 'HRM operational models and practices to enable strategic agility in PBOs: managing paradoxical tensions', Journal of Business Research, vol. 133, pp. 170-182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.04.048

Paper

Ambituuni, A, Nugun Patrick, J, Amoozad Mahdiraji, H & Kate , D 2025, 'Toward participatory grand challenge projects: insights on stakeholder agency in forced displacement context', Paper presented at EURAM 2025 Annual Conference, Florence, Italy, 22/06/25 - 25/06/25.

Ambituuni, A & Amoozad Mahdiraji, H 2024, 'A transparency-based project management framework for achieving environmental goals in green projects', Paper presented at 38th British Academy of Management (BAM) Conference, Notthingham, United Kingdom, 2/09/24 - 6/09/24.

Ambituuni, A, Amoozad Mahdiraji, H & Enang, I 2024, 'Mitigating the risk of ‘green washing’ in green projects: a transparency-based agile project management perspective', Paper presented at EURAM Annual Conference 2024, Bath, United Kingdom, 25/06/24 - 28/06/24.

Ambituuni, A, Ejiogu, A & Ejiogu, C 2023, 'A principal-agent perspective to transparency as a tool for anticorruption in public infrastructure projects (PIPs)', Paper presented at British Academy of Management Conference 2023, Falmer, Brighton, United Kingdom, 4/09/23 - 6/09/23.

Lobo, DS & Ambituuni, A 2023, 'SDG 4 in Mozambique: assessing the role of projectification in improving education quality', Paper presented at EURAM Annual Conference 2023, Dublin, Ireland, 14/06/23 - 16/06/23.

Review article

Ambituuni, A, Osobajo, OA, Kamudyariwa, XB & Adu, DA 2025, 'Project-based enactment of circular economy (CE) business models: a systematic literature review of CE-Project research nexus', Business Strategy and the Environment. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.70143

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