Amdam is Professor of Business History at BI Norwegian Business School and was in 2015 (fall) The Alfred D. Chandler International Visiting Scholar in Business History at Harvard Business School.  He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oslo on a study on the history of business education in Norway and has studied the role of business schools in the creation of European management practice within a EU funded project. He has also served as the Dean of BI’ Executive Programmes for four years. In 2001 Amdam was the leader of the organizing committee of the EBHA conference in Oslo.

In addition to studies on business education, he has published papers and books on e.g. the glass industry, pharmaceutical industry, Americanization, regional development, knowledge transfer and internationalisation of cluster firms.