Category: Academics

In a fast-moving, innovative business world, staying on the cutting-edge is an extremely valuable skill. Among the emerging business leaders are digital entrepreneurs – self-employed venturers who promote their businesses outside their local communities, relying on information technology and digital media tools to attract potential customers.

Professor Arvind Gudi, Ph.D., with the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship, knows the ins and outs of this business strategy.

“My research is focused on digital entrepreneurship, knowledge management, knowledge integration in emergency management, and human-computer interaction,” he said.

“I received the President’s Faculty Research & Development Competition Grant in 2022 as principal investigator, and I’m currently developing collaborative research articles. The topic of the grant proposal is ‘Environmental Change due to COVID-19 and Digital Entrepreneurship.’”

Digital entrepreneurs are able to pivot services, branding and pricing without suffering significant turnaround time. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon – four of the top five most valuable companies – are products of digital entrepreneurship.

Born in the state of Karnataka, India, Gudi’s family settled in South Florida more than 35 years ago. He received his Ph.D. in Business Administration and Master of Science in Management Information Systems at Florida International University. He came to Nova Southeastern University about nine years ago.  Prior to his academic career, he has more than 20 years of experience in corporate management and consulting.

Gudi, who teaches in the Department of Decision Sciences, has been published widely in scholarly journals including the International Journal of Knowledge Management, International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, Behaviour and Information Technology, and Health Promotion International.

Since arriving at NSU, Gudi was honored with the Teaching Excellence Award for his pursuit of excellence in teaching and student learning in 2018-19. He also received the Service Excellence Award in 2021-22 for his outstanding service activities to NSU, corporate partners, and community members.

One of Gudi’s most prized innovations that he has brought to NSU was the creation of the Mindfulness Society, where he serves as a faculty coach and adviser for the professional and personal development of its members, which include faculty, students, staff, and corporate partners. Through the society, participants enhance their educational and professional pursuits through developing self-awareness, focus, concentration, perspective, mental agility, openness, intellectual curiosity, and other qualities.

“These are the essential characteristics to enable them to be effective and successful leaders, corporate managers, entrepreneurs, and engaged community members,” Gudi said.

“The Mindfulness Society fosters an innovative learning environment toward self-development, transformation and value-based lifestyle.”

Gudi started the society in 2017, because he saw something critically missing in the education experience.

“My observation and experience in the academic and business environment is that everything we do is necessary and required but not sufficient for us to have fulfilling and successful lives,” he said. “I believe that we need to develop education systems that are integrated and holistic,

be aligned with the vision and mission of HCBE Best for our World ^TM.”

When it comes to teaching, Gudi focuses on making learning not only holistic but inspirational and never-ending.

“As teachers and researchers, we are in a unique and responsible situation where we can make a significant impact on students in particular, and society in general,” he said. “My goal is to inspire students so they continue the process of learning even after they have completed the program and are able to apply the lessons learned in their personal and professional lives. A great teacher once said, ‘A student is like a lamp to be lit and not a bucket to be filled.’”

Posted 01/22/23

If there is one thing that Professor Bahaudin Mujtaba, D.B.A., has learned during his years in higher education is the complexity of teaching a diverse group of students.

“We often go into the classroom with the assumption that all students have the same capabilities and credentials to be in the classroom,” he said. “However, the reality is that there is always some degree of variance among learners and some students learn differently even though they have the same credentials as others sitting next to them.”

Mujtaba came to Nova Southeastern University in 1998 as an adjunct faculty member and joined full-time as director of undergraduate business programs and an assistant professor in 2002. He then served as a director of Institutional Relations and Accreditation at the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship for two years, then as Management Department chair for six years.

Mujtaba was born in Khoshie, a small district in eastern Afghanistan, and was raised in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was one of six children in a family that fled his home country during the early 1980s during the Russian invasion. His father worked as a civil engineering professor at Kabul University, while his mother took care of Mujtaba and his siblings. The family eventually settled in Florida.

“My father has been working as a civil engineer in Florida since 1983,” Mujtaba said.

As a teenager, Mujtaba says he had no plans of following in the academic footsteps of his father.

“When my father was a university professor, I used to see him grade papers and prepare lesson plans all hours of the night,” he said. “As such, I did not want to be a university professor when I was a teenager.”

But when Mujtaba received his doctorate degree from NSU in Business Administration in 1996, professors asked him to lecture on business ethics to doctoral students for four hours a week. The experience changed his perspective on teaching.

“Since I was a management development specialist and I facilitated three to five days leadership and management workshops for corporate managers, teaching business ethics to doctoral students was interesting and enjoyable,” he said. “Then the university asked me if I could teach a master’s course for the entire semester; so, I did, and it was fun. I wanted to continue doing it.

“After three years of adjunct teaching during evenings, online and weekends, I retired after 16 years of working in corporate America and transitioned into academia on a full-time basis. It has been a fun ride ever since.”

Mujtaba says his relationship with his students is a partnership and joint learning process where he lectures, facilitates, and encourages collaboration regarding various management and leadership topics in the modern workplace.

“My expertise is in business ethics, training, diversity, cross-cultural management, and leadership development,” he said.

When asked about his attraction to NSU, Mujtaba emphasizes the “flexibility” of the NSU working culture. Here, he says, he can teach in various modalities and travel worldwide to learn, speak, and conduct research.

“I have had the pleasure of traveling, presenting, and/or lecturing at many different continents and countries such as China, Jamaica, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Japan, Afghanistan and many others,” he said, adding that he also served as a cultural consultant on the 2007 Oscar-nominated movie “The Kite Runner.”

Mujtaba’s research focuses on creating awareness regarding ethical and moral management practices. The power of good research resides in the ability to find factual answers to dilemmas based on evidence and critical thinking, he says.

“I have written extensively about effective leadership, coaching, equity, inclusion, diversity, avoidance of discrimination, and the creation of a healthy work environment for all workers in an organization and society,” Mujtaba said.

When it comes to teaching, Mujtaba emphasizes possessing the capacity to develop others and help students achieve their goals and learn at the same time. He notes that achieving such a goal is a balancing act with its fair share of challenges that necessitate understanding the academic dynamics of individual students.

“One challenging element of teaching has been adapting to the diverse learning styles of sometimes 20 different students in the same classroom and seeing that all of them can achieve the same outcomes using a different pace, separate exercises, and/or person-based accommodations,” he said. “When diverse students with different learning styles can all achieve excellent outcomes in the classroom at the end of a semester, that is what I consider success.

“When I see students graduate and make positive contributions to society, well, then that is just additional healthy icing on the Publix Bakery cake,” he added.

Posted 12/12/22