Dr Azka Ghafoor

Lecturer

Room OBS 7017
Email azka.ghafoor@otago.ac.nz

Azka joined the Department of Management at Otago in 2021 after teaching and co-ordinating courses at Auckland University of Technology (AUT).

Azka has previously worked as a researcher on the National Science Challenge (Science for Technological Innovation) and as a diploma co-ordinator at AUT. She has published in the ABDC ranked journals, and is the recipient of the Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship for her PhD. She has also held training co-ordinator and business development roles in international firms, which allows her to embed real-world perspective into her teaching practices. She uses system thinking tools and creates engagement with a variety of media to support student learning.

Azka is also supervising master's and doctoral students on their research projects. Azka’s current area of research interest is focused on exploring the dynamics of Human-AI ecosystem and how it can impact human behaviours. Azka is interested in exploring this are ain depth through qualitative and quantitative research.

Azka collaborates across universities on various research projects, and has previously published and disseminated her research outputs both nationally and internationally. Her applied research has the potential to inform and impact businesses seeking to plan and create strategies, and gain momentum towards becoming highly creative, innovative and effectively resource organisations that can thrive in dynamic environments. Her findings provide practical recommendations for organisations seeking to stay ahead of the curve in today's rapidly changing business landscape. Azka is interested in offering her services to businesses and industries seeking to advance their success and potential through evidence-based research that provides actionable insights and recommendations.

Teaching responsibilities

Azka currently teaches entrepreneurship and strategy, organisational behaviours and human resource development courses – leveraging her diverse experience in consulting and training.

• MANT 250 Managing People
• MANT 303 Fundamentals in Entrepreneurship
• MANT 339 Human Resource Development.

Other responsibilities

Azka's other responsibilities include:

• Course advisor and approver
• Members of Research Committee.

Research interests

Azka's current and evolving research interests fall across following broad areas

Current/published

• Anthropomorphic nature of AI
• Human-AI synergy at work, its impact on creativity, careers and its cost in modern workplaces.
• Creativity and innovation, Creative firms
• Organizational stressors, work demands and strain
• Psychological resources
• Stress, anxiety, and wellbeing
• Conservation of resource theory
• Working from home/ workaholism
• Fear of failures
• Mechanisms of well-being in modern workplaces
• Post-Covid-19 disruptions: careers, productivity, AI and wellbeing
• Future of work: Indicators of dynamic stressors.

PhD Opportunities

Azka is seeking research students along the broad areas of:

• Anthropomorphic nature of AI
• Human-AI synergy at work
• Creativity and innovation (behavioural, contextual and organisational perspectives)
• Workplace Well-Being
• Individual agility and grit
• Advanced organisational capabilities and their impact on behaviours.

Current Supervisions

Azka is currently supervising the following students:

PhD

• Mashkoor Ahmad – Succession decisions for family businesses (Supervisors: Diane Ruwhiu, Paula O'Kane, Azka Ghafoor) – under examination.

DBA

• Karen Goldsworthy – You are who you hang with: How workplace social networks can help embed lessons from corporate diversity and inclusion training programmes (Supervisors: Azka Ghafoor, Maja Graso – University of Groningen).

Masters

• Kate Hebblethwaite – Exploring Effective Biodiversity Focused Collaborative Innovation in New Zealand through Governance Network Theory (Supervisors: Azka Ghafoor, Completed)
• Sophie Gimblett – Building Workplace Inclusion in a Hybrid Environment: An Exploratory Study (Supervisors: Dana Ott, Azka Ghafoor, Completed).

Media

• Arora, S. (2023). One-third of Kiwi workers think of quitting and moving to Australia – study. Stuff – Business, 1 August 2023
• Massey News (2023). Exploring the current drivers of workforce turnover. Massey News -  Research, 19 July 2023