Professor Samir Nurmohamed’s research focuses on how people endure, respond and persist when experiencing adversity at work.
His research spans two key streams of research related to adversity: one on workplace motivation, primarily focusing on underdogs and the impact of expectations, and another on behavioral ethics, investigating how employees respond to the adversity of unethical behavior in their organizations. For example, most existing research shows that others’ low expectations are detrimental to the performance of employees and groups within organizations, but he is interested in understanding why and when individuals can derive motivation and even achieve success when others question their capacity to succeed or treat them poorly. He has conducted his research using multiple methods in contexts such as leaders and employees in Fortune 500 corporations, job seekers at reemployment centers, and entrepreneurs seeking to bring new culturally contentious initiatives to the marketplace. His work has been published in academic journals such as the Academy of Management Journal and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes and featured in practitioner outlets such as the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Athletic, and NPR’s Hidden Brain.
Professor Nurmohamed (or as he is known to his students, “Prof Nurmo”) teaches the MBA core course on the Foundations of Teamwork and Leadership (MGMT 610), as well as an elective on Power and Politics in Organizations (MGMT 272/772) in the undergraduate, MBA, and executive education programs. At Wharton, he has received several teaching awards, including the Teaching Excellence Award, Excellence in Teaching for the Undergraduate Division Award, and MBA Teaching Commitment and Curricular Innovation Award. You can view his commencement address to the graduating class in 2015 below.
He completed his Ph.D. in Management and Organizations at the University of Michigan and earned his B.A. in Economics and Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. For fun, he enjoys karaoke-ing to Drake and Kanye, cheering for Toronto and Michigan sports, traveling to new countries, and eating at both fancy and hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Philly (i.e., the best pound-for-pound food city in America) with his wife, Salimah, and their toddler (who is becoming a little foodie…with strong opinions).
For more information about him, please visit www.profnurmo.com.
