Researcher focused on public sector policy, governance and reform
Dr Ben Walker (Ngāti Raukawa) is a Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand). His research and teaching focus on the “people side” of management, and the ways that work affects (and is affected) by people’s beliefs, identities, and emotions.
As a researcher, Ben’s primary interest is uncovering under-researched and overlooked psychological “quirks” that nevertheless have a big impact in the workplace. Examples from his past and ongoing research include performance-based identities (where people feel defined by how well they perform at work), lay theories of expertise (people’s often hidden assumptions about the meaning and nature of expertise), and the “dark side” of high performance (the ways that negative psychological factors such as anxiety, neuroticism, anger can facilitate workplace success).
Outside of academia, Ben is a dad, golfer, gardener, and musician.