Dr Adam Nix

• PhD in Management, 2019
• PG Cert in Learning and Teaching (HE), 2016
• MSc in International Business, 2012
• BA (Hons) in Business and Law, 2011

Adam joined the University of Birmingham in 2021 and has since taken on a range of roles within Birmingham Business School. Among these, he co-led the School’s participation in the UN-affiliated Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative from 2023 to 2026 and has served as a Strategic Area Lead within the Centre for Responsible Business since 2025. A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2016, Adam also teaches across multiple programmes and remains actively involved in advancing responsible business pedagogy and curriculum development.

Adam’s research draws on qualitative and historical approaches to management and organisation studies. His research has been published in leading journals, including Business History, Business History Review, and the Journal of Business Ethics. His recent co-authored book examines the role of language in building and sustaining trust, especially within corrupt or illicit organisational contexts. Adam served as Book Reviews Editor for Business History for five years, moving to Associate Editor in 2025. He is currently also Secretary of the Association of Business Historians.

Adam’s teaching is focused on ethics, governance, and other responsible business themes, which he delivers to both undergraduate and postgraduate students across the Business School’s programmes. He currently contributes to the following modules:

• LI Responsible Business: Theory and Practice (UG)

• LM Sustainable and Responsible Practices (PG)

• LM Sustainability and Responsible Business (PG)

Guting Shen, PhD Management, ‘The Business Models of Department Stores in Modern Shanghai, 1880s-1940s’.

With expertise in both historical and qualitative approaches, Adam’s research focuses on organisations and their relationship with political and market environments. He is particularly interested in questions of purpose, reliability, and the management of governance risks. Adam has also published extensively on research methods, specialising in the use of digital archives.

Adam’s historical research has often focused on energy supply contexts. His work on California’s deregulated electricity markets received international recognition, winning the Henrietta Lawson Award for the Best Article in Business History Review in 2021. More recent work has focused on the UK’s electricity supply industry and its transition from nationalisation to privatisation in the late twentieth century.

Adam has also contributed to a variety of interdisciplinary research projects. He has collaborated on international, grant-funded projects to develop AI-based tools for analysing large-scale digital archives. This research received funding from the Arts & Humanities Research Council and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (US). Other recent collaborations include UK Government-funded projects on how language shapes trust and an investigation of global trade systems and their relationship to smuggling.

Adam is currently an Associate Editor of the journal Business History and Secretary of the Association of Business Historians.