Distinguished Emerging Scholar at John Molson School of Business
Arman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Supply Chain and Business Technology Management (SCBTM), BTM area group chair, and the Director of the John Molson Perspectives at John Molson School of Business, Concordia University. Arman is also a member of the Concordia School of Health. His research focuses on digital innovation, digital entrepreneurship, technology-enabled organizational capabilities, entrepreneurial ecosystems, the digital divide, community development, and digital health. Arman specializes in using qualitative and system dynamics methods to address real-world problems. Arman has been selected as the recipient of the 2025 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship (Emerging Scholar) at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University. Arman has published his research in a number of international journals, including the International Journal of Information Management (IJIM), Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS), Information Technology for Development (IT4D), and Technovation, among others. Arman is also the recipient of several research grants from different agencies, including the Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and the FRQSC Research Support for New Professors (Soutien à la recherche pour la relève professorale). He received his Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from the Smith School of Business, Queen's University, Canada.
September 2026 - Happy to moderate a panel on "AI and Entrepreneurship" as part of the John Molson Perspectives Seminar Series. To register for this event, please click Here.
July 2026 - Happy to receive the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (IDG) as the principal investigator (PI) for my research focusing on exploring the promises and pitfalls of AI-enabled Telemedicine in Canada. Dr. Mahdi Mirhoseini is my Co-PI in this research project.
June 2026 - I am honored to have been promoted to Associate Professor at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University.
April 2026 - I'm happy to share that my latest journal paper on Frugal Digital Innovation, entitled "Turning Dust to Gold: Frugal Digital Innovation in an EdTech Startup in Rural India," has just been accepted for publication in the Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS), co-authored with Dr. Suchit Ahuja and Alireza Khaleghi Songhor (PhD Student).
April 2026 - I'm thrilled to be heading to Milan for ECIS 2026! It will be a full and exciting conference for our research group: I have a paper accepted for presentation, I will be attending the EJIS Paper Development Workshop on Digital Health, and I have three TREO poster presentations co-authored with my PhD students. Looking forward to connecting with the IS community and sharing the work coming out of our research group.
March 2026 - A paper co-authored with Abby Golub (PhD Student) and Dr. Suchut Ahuja has been accepted at the 2026 Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) conference in Calgary.
March 2026 - Happy to announce that my Ph.D. student, Meron Asefa, received the Best Poster Award (PhD Track) at the Annual Graduate Student Exposition (AGRE) at John Molson School of Business, Concordia University.
December 2025 - Thrilled to announce that I am the recipient of the 2025 Dean's Award for Distinguished Scholarship (Emerging Scholar) at John Molson School of Business, Concordia University.
September 2025 - I'm honored to serve as the Track Co-Chair for the "Digital Innovation, Transformation, and Entrepreneurship (DITE)" track at AMCIS 2026. Looking forward to shaping engaging conversations and research in this exciting area. Click HERE for more details.
July 2025 - Happy to serve as one of the Associate Editors of the "Literature Review" track at ECIS 2026. For more information, click HERE.
March 2025 - Looking forward to your submissions for the special issue on "Digital Entrepreneurship and Social Impact" at the Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship. (Abstract Due: June 30, 2025; Full Paper Due: January 31, 2026)
July 2025 - I'm happy to be a panelist on "Fostering Inclusive Digital Entrepreneurial Ecosystems" at AMCIS 2025. Looking forward to a great discussion on creating more equitable and accessible digital entrepreneurship spaces.
June 2025 - I am pleased to announce that our full paper, co-authored with my PhD student Mohammad Qorbani Hesari on "Digital Innovation in Gen AI Ecosystems," has been accepted at AMCIS 2025. To access the article, click HERE. This paper has been selected as one of the top 25% of full papers at AMCIS 2025.
June 2025 - I am pleased to announce that our ERF paper, co-authored with my PhD student Alireza Khaleghi Songhor on "Organizational Capabilities for Gen AI Implementation," has been accepted at AMCIS 2025. To access the article, click HERE.
June 2025 - Excited to share that I’ve been reappointed as Director of John Molson Perspectives, our faculty’s knowledge dissemination platform, for another three-year term. Looking forward to continuing this important work in sharing impactful research and insights from the John Molson School of Business.
May 2025 - Congratulations to my MSc student, Emile Eeckhout, on the successful defense of his thesis, "Strengthening the Canadian Academic Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: A Living Lab Approach." Well done on this important achievement!
April 2025 - I’m pleased to announce that my research project on "Gen AI & low-code/no-code development platforms in entrepreneurial ecosystems" has been awarded funding by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC).
March 2025 - Congratulations to my PhD student, Alireza Khaleghi, who received the Popular Choice Award for his poster presentation on "Organizational Capabilities for Generative AI Implementation" at John Molson School of Business Annual Graduate Research Exposition (AGRE) 2025.
February 2025 - Happy to announce that our Teaching Case entitled "ThinkZone 2.0: How to Develop Capabilities to Scale EdTech in Rural India" has been published by Ivey Publishing. To access the case, click HERE.
December 2024 - Happy to receive the Barry F. Lorenzetti Centre for Women in Entrepreneurship and Leadership research grant as the co-investigator with Dr. Suchit Ahuja for our research focusing on "factors influencing women in IT leadership careers."
December 2024 - Happy to present the preliminary findings of my research on "How Digital Technology Shapes Entrepreneurial Ecosystems" at ICIS 2024 - TREO Session.
November 2024 - Honored to be named a Distinguished Member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS). Grateful for the recognition and the opportunity to contribute to this vibrant global community.
November 2024 - Great experience at CCSBE 2024 in Calgary, where I presented the preliminary findings of my research on "digital entrepreneurial ecosystems". Looking forward to continuing this discussion at ICIS 2024 in Bangkok.
October 2024 - Excited to announce that our Teaching Case on developing organizational capabilities in the education sector by leveraging readily available technologies has ranked third in the "2024 John Molson Business Ownership Case Writing Competition" at Concordia University - John Molson School of Business.
October 2024 - Happy to serve as the mini-track chair and co-chair at AMCIS 2025 in the "Digital Entrepreneurship" and "Strategic Implications of Emerging Digital Technologies: Organizational and Socio-Economic Impacts", respectively. Submission due date: February 28, 2025 (for more information, click HERE).
September 2024 - Happy to announce that I will be the director of the John Molson Perspectives (our faculty knowledge dissemination platform).
April 2024 - Congratulations to my Ph.D. student, Mohammad Qorbani Hesari who received the "FRQSC Doctoral Research Scholarship".
January 2024 - Happy to serve as the mini-track co-chair at AMCIS 2024 in the "Digital Entrepreneurship" and "Strategic Implications of Emerging Digital Technologies: Organizational and Socio-Economic Impacts". Submission due date: March 1st, 2024 (for more information, click HERE).
December 2023 - I am happy to announce that my recent paper entitled "Readily Available Technologies in Low-Resource Communities: A Review and Synthesis," co-authored with Thi Linh Phuong Dang and Dr. Suchit Ahuja, has been published in the Information Technology for Development. You can find the paper HERE.
November 2023 - Happy to be one of the track associate editors (Conference Theme Track - People First: Constructing Digital Futures Together) at ECIS 2024.
August 2023 - Happy to announce that my recent paper entitled "Digitally Enabled Entrepreneurial Resilience: Dialectics of Collective Minding" co-authored with Mohammad Qorbani Hesari (my Ph.D. student), and Dr. Suchit Ahuja has been accepted at AMCIS 2023, Panama. This paper has been selected as one of the top 25% of ERF papers at AMCIS 2023.
July 2023 - My Ph.D. student, Mohammad Qorbani Hesari's research co-authored with me entitled "Unveiling the Tech-Powered Governance: An actor-network approach to govern platform ecosystems " is accepted at IRAIS Annual Conference on Information Systems.
March 2023 - Happy to announce that my Ph.D. student, Abby Golub received the Best Poster Award in Entrepreneurship at the Annual Graduate Student Exposition (AGRE) at John Molson School of Business, Concordia University.
March 2023 - Happy to be part of the organizing committee of the Annual DITE Symposium at JMSB. Looking forward to your submissions by April 30th.
December 2022 - Daniel Gelinas's research, co-authored with me and Dr. Rustam Vahidov is published in the Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems. You can find the paper HERE.
October 2022 - My research with Dr. Yolande Chan on pathways to developing IT-Enabled capabilities in born-digital new ventures has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Information Management. You can find the paper HERE.
September 2022 - My research with Farzam Borromand and Dr. Yolande Chan on digital product architecture and customer agility in new digital ventures has been accepted for publication in Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS). You can find the paper HERE.
September 2022 - Happy to announce that I will be one of the panelists at the upcoming Researcher-Practitioner Exchange Series on September 20th hosted by the National Bank Initiative in Entrepreneurship & Family Business. The panel will focus on "Digital Entrepreneurship Ecosystems". For more information and to register for the panel, please click HERE.
August 2022 - Happy to announce that a paper co-authored with Dr. Suchit Ahuja, Dr. Yolande Chan, and I entitled "Innovating within Institutional Voids: A Digital Health Platform in India" has been accepted at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) 2023.
July 2022 - Happy to receive the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (IDG) as the principal investigator (PI) for my research focusing on technologies for low-resource community impact. Dr. Suchit Ahuja and Dr. Yolande Chan are my Co-PIs in this research project.
June 2022 - Our paper co-authored with Yolande E. Chan and Rashmi Krishnamurthy entitled "Digitally-enabled university incubation processes" has been published at Technovation.
June 2022 - It's my pleasure again to be one of the associate editors of the "Digitization of Education, Work, and Society" track at ECIS 2023.
May 2022 - Happy to announce that Daniel Gelinas's recent article entitled "Artificial Intelligence in Human Resources Management: A Scoping Review" co-authored with me and Dr. Rustam Vahidov has been accepted into AMCIS 2022.
April 2022 - Happy to announce that a book chapter co-authored with Dr. Suchit Ahuja and I entitled "Frugal Digital Innovation: Delivering Healthcare Services in Rural India" has been accepted for publication at "Advancing Digital Value", Edward Elgar Publishing Inc.
April 2022 - Happy to receive the Institutional SIG Exchange Grant by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) as the principal investigator (PI) to financially support our "MIS Invited Speaker Series" at John Molson.
March 2022 - Happy to announce that Dr. Suchit Ahuja and I received 150K grant for a high-impact Mitacs Accelerate project on digital entrepreneurship and social impact to work with 0rijin Village, which is an entrepreneurial ecosystem dedicated to the economic development of Afro-descendant people and the strengthening of their economic, financial and social roles through digital technology.
March 2022 - Delighted to announce that along with my co-applicant, Dr. Suchit Ahuja, our research proposal on "digital entrepreneurship and resilience" has been funded by the National Bank Initiative in Entrepreneurship and Family Business research center at John Molson School of Business, Concordia University.
January 2022 - Happy to announce that I am one of the mini-track co-chairs at AMCIS 2022 in "Digital Entrepreneurship" and "The Affordance Perspective of Digitalization: Strategic Implications". For more information click here.
December 2021 - I am happy to announce that our paper with Dr. Suchit Ahuja and Dr. Yolande Chan entitled "Readily Available Technologies for Building Community Resilience: Lessons from India during the Covid-19 pandemic" has been published at the Journal of Community Informatics. For more information click here.
November 2021 - I am happy to announce that our ongoing research with Dr. Suchit Ahuja and Allie Dang entitled "Digital Technologies in Low-Resource Communities: An Exploratory Study " has been accepted in the ICIS 2021 TREO Talk track. For more information click here.
September 2021 - I am happy to announce that I am invited to the upcoming mentorship event, entitled "The Ph.D. Journey: Advice from Recent Grads" organized by the AIS Doctoral Student College.
September 2021 - It's my pleasure to be one of the associate editors of the "Digitization of Education, Private Industries, and Society" track at ECIS 2022.
August 2021 - I am invited to be one of the panelists on the "future of work" as part of MTL Connect, hosted by Concordia's 4th Space.
July 2021 - I am one of the coordinators of the Digital Innovation Research Hub. For more information click HERE.
May 2021 - I am happy to announce that our ongoing research with Dr. Suchit Ahuja and Dr. Nadege Levallet on "University Entrepreneurial Ecosystems" has been accepted at the R&D Management Conference 2021.
April 2021 - I am invited to present my research on digital entrepreneurship at the SCBTM Research Exchange Series, Concordia University.
April 2021 - I am happy to announce that my PhD thesis was nominated by the Smith School of Business for the 2021 Distinguished Dissertation CAGS/ProQuest award.
March 2021 - I received funding through the SSHRC Institutional Grants (SIG) program for my research project on digital innovation! Dr. Suchit Ahuja is my co-applicant in this research.
November 2020 - I am serving as the chair of the "MIS Invited Speaker Series" and "SCBTM Research Exchange Series" from Winter 2021 at JMSB.
November 2020 - I am invited to present my research on digital entrepreneurship at the "Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research Event" at Smith School of Business, Queen's University.
October 2020 - Dr. Suchit Ahuja (the Principal Investigator) and I have been granted funding through the SSHRC Institutional Grants (SIG) program for our research on digital entrepreneurship!
October 2020 - Interviewed with CKNW (Global News) on the role of digital technologies in communities at the age of pandemic.
Sept. 2020 - Our research with Dr. Suchit Ahuja and Dr. Yolande E. Chan on incorporating digital technologies to build resilient communities published by The Conversation.
Sept. 2020 - I will co-chair a mini-track on Implications of Affordance Theory for Digital Strategy and Innovation Research in Strategic & Competitive Uses of Information and Digital Technologies track at AMCIS 2021 in Montréal, Canada.
Sept. 2020 - I am excited to join the Supply Chain and Business Technology Management Department at John Molson School of Business, Concordia University!
Aug. 2020 - I am pleased to announce that I have successfully defended my PhD dissertation.
July 2020 - Our research with Dr. Suchit Ahuja and Dr. Yolande E. Chan on the role of readily available digital technologies at each phase of a pandemic response in communities is now available at Smith Business Insight .
Jan 2020 - I am serving as a review coordinator at AMCIS 2021 in Montréal, Canada.
Dec. 2019 - I presented my research in progress at DIGIT Pre-ICIS 2019 Workshop, Munich, Germany.
Dec. 2019 - I presented my research in progress at SIG DITE paper development workshop (PDW) at ICIS 2019 , Munich, Germany.
Aug. 2019 - I presented the paper on Technology Affordances in Digital Innovation Research at AMCIS 2019, Cancun, Mexico.
Aug. 2019 - I am invited to participate in the ICIS 2019 Doctoral Consortium in Munich, Germany.
June 2019 - I am invited to participate in the AMCIS 2019 Doctoral Consortium for advanced students in Cancun, Mexico.
Jan. 2019 - I am the co-winner of the Alan R. Dennis Doctoral Award at Smith School of Business, Queen's University.
PhD, Management, Smith School of Business, Queen's University, Canada
MSc, Management, Smith School of Business, Queen's University, Canada
MASc, Quality Systems Engineering, Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science, Concordia University, Canada
BSc, Industrial Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Iran