Neveen Saied graduated in 2017 with a master’s degree in Business Administration from Cardiff Metropolitan University in the UK. Having worked for 12 years in areas pertaining to education, training and development, she focused her master thesis on the evaluation of a national human resource development project she co-designed and managed. This project contributed to upskilling 45,000 university students in 21 Egyptian universities in partnership with multi-national organizations in the information and communication technology sector. After completing her master’s degree, she continued to work on several research and development projects spanning Africa, Asia, North America, and Europe. During this period, she further developed her interest in pursuing an academic trajectory focusing on studying work dynamics within the gig economy.

Neveen’s research interests on the gig economy and creating sustainable careers strongly aligns with Vlerick Business School’s strategic pillars of entrepreneurship, digital transformation, and sustainability. As such, she worked together with her promotor, Katleen De Stobbeleir, to write up a PhD research proposal on “The Client’s Role in Influencing the Independent Workers’ Thriving”. In 2019, Neveen embarked on her PhD journey at Vlerick and the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEB) in Ghent University. Through her PhD research, she studies the experiences of self-employed individuals. Specifically, she examines how gig workers craft their identities in their new world of work and with no affiliation to any organization. Furthermore, she explores the relationship between gig workers and their clients and works on unravelling the factors that can enhance workers’ performance and clients’ satisfaction. In doing so, her work contributes to theory building pertaining on alternative work arrangements, as well as provides value for workers’ performance and wellbeing in the business world.

Neveen is part of the People and Organisation area at Vlerick and  the HRM and Organisational Behaviour research group at the FEB. Thanks to this unique connection with both groups, she gains access to research and practice communities that support rigorous and relevant research. Neveen is passionate about doing research with societal impact, hence, she collaborated with several communities such as VOKA ONE and Freelancers in Belgium to ground her research in the reality of the business world and to disseminate the findings of her studies. Her work was featured in local outlets such as HRmagazine, Nextconomy,  and the European Freelancers Week.

Neveen is also involved in the Vlerick’s centre for excellence in leading adaptive organizations, which led to fruitful partnerships with  organizations that could help in collecting data and benefit from her research. Along with her colleagues, she contributed to publishing a white paper on “Flexing your workforce” that discusses the different ways in which organizations can enhance their workforce flexibility. Neveen was also a  tutor for Vlerick’s online MBA in the course on leadership development, in which, she guided and coached participants to develop their leadership skills.

During her PhD, Neveen has presented her research at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting 2021 and 2022. She also received the third best paper award in the EURAM 2021 Doctoral Colloquium. Neveen is currently in the last year of her PhD. Neveen aspires to continue her career in academia and is gearing her research towards publications in top-tier academic journals.

Have a look at Neveen's profile at the FRIS portal.