Good day, Mitali Praveen Kumar Saxena. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia.

So hello Arjun, I started with the starting with my 10th, I completed my 10th and 12th from Maharashtra board, 12th being from commerce followed by Bachelors of Commerce that is Vcom from Mumbai University. And during that time I was also pursuing CA. I qualified CA Inter and worked for three years as an article trainee because of which I.

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Let's begin by verifying your qualifications for this role. You hold a Ph.D. in Management from the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur—correct? Could you briefly describe the focus of your doctoral research?

My first difference is the organization.

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I'm not sure I fully understand. Could you clarify or rephrase your statement? Let's focus on the specifics of your academic and professional background. To start, could you elaborate on the focus of your doctoral research?

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Professor, I’d like to bring us back to the questions about your qualifications and expertise. Let’s focus on discussing your doctoral research or experience relevant to the role. Can you provide more details on that?

Give me a couple of minutes here at one time.

Take your time, Professor. Let me know when you're ready to continue.

Hi, how are you?

I'm here to focus on the interview and assess your qualifications. Shall we proceed with discussing your expertise and skills relevant to this role?

So I was an experience on a research tool.

It's like the psychoanalysts such as Fi.

And, uh, also lecture exclusive.

Understood, Professor. Let’s structure this a bit more for clarity. Could you share specific details about your experience with research tools? For instance, the methodologies or tools like R coding, JASP, or any others you’ve worked with?

And also I have no.

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These are original analysis.

Let’s redirect back to a more focused area. Could you provide insights into your teaching experience, particularly in conducting theory or laboratory-based courses? This is an essential aspect of the Human Resource Management Professor role.

I remember how to use outgoing.

Spotlighting, hearing, uh, plans.

And also I have uh.

Professor, could you clarify or expand on your teaching strategies or your experience guiding students in their projects and research? This will help us better understand your suitability for this role.

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If you're experiencing technical issues, please let me know once you're able to continue. I'm here to proceed as soon as you're ready.

I didn't have any questions.

Understood, Professor. Let’s continue. Could you outline your approach to incorporating HR analytics or AI applications into Human Resource Management teaching or research?

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And the strategically updated and.

Understood. Let me refocus. Could you elaborate on your experience with Strategic Management? For example, have you taught or applied strategic principles in any academic or professional setting?

What about strategic fragments?

Could you provide an example of how you’ve integrated strategic frameworks, such as SWOT analysis or Porter’s Five Forces, in your teaching or research? How do you ensure students effectively grasp these concepts?

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Let's bring this back to your expertise relevant to this role. Could you describe your experience in organizational behavior and how you incorporate soft skills training or career management into your teaching methods?

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This is how we can make the year go a bit.

Professor, I’d like us to refocus on verifying your skills for this role. Could you discuss your experience with guiding student projects or conducting student evaluations? This is a critical element of the teaching role.

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What's the single dimensions? The whole dimensions are import.

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I just like each representative.

Understood, Professor. Let's focus on specifics. Can you share your experience with publishing research in reputed journals? Perhaps highlight a paper or study you're particularly proud of.

So if it happens.

It was a bigger responsibility.

Could you provide a specific example of your research work that demonstrates your ability to publish in reputed journals? Highlighting a key study or achievement would help clarify this further.

Feedback and these are the several aspects that were considered in the study and the outcome said that it is better to have human in loop in feedback mechanisms.

When we talk about AI as a feedback giver.

Interesting point about AI as a feedback giver. Could you expand on how you’ve applied AI or data-driven techniques like sentiment analysis or text analysis in HR contexts or research? Specifically, any practical outcomes or contributions to the field?

So yes, we applied sentiment analysis using various packages available in our software. Using these packages, we came to know that talking about AI, it is not yet able to build the variety of emotions that human is able to build. AI feedback is more positive in nature and also.

Practical implications. Yes Sir, Managers need to know that when feedback is a very important aspect in performance enhancement, performance optimization.

And in this, when we design feedback, feedback involves several emotions. AI like this emotional intelligence and also AI likes the contextual relevance. So before replacing human feedback with AI assistance, it is.

Better know that yes, AI can be based trained on several data. AI can provide real time feedback, but human feedback is equally important because of the emotions it consists of and the contextual relevance it has while offering feedback.

Thank you, Professor. That’s a thoughtful perspective on the limitations of AI in providing emotionally and contextually relevant feedback. It shows a nuanced understanding of combining AI-powered insights with human judgment in HR contexts. Let's move on. Can you describe your teaching approach in terms of structuring lessons or ensuring clear communication, especially for complex topics like HR analytics or entrepreneurship?

For such topics, I really focus on real world examples. So they will students will be having simulations, job role-playing and project based learning, case studies, activities they need to perform, games they need to perform, which will help them learn the real-world context.

And they will know that once they are outside the academic cage, they know how the real world is and they can deal with them more properly. And this is how the simulations project based learning and activities.

Will be helpful while teaching.

Several aspects.

Thank you for explaining your teaching approach. Incorporating simulations, role-playing, and project-based learning can truly enhance student engagement and readiness for real-world challenges. Now, could you elaborate on your experience with student evaluations, such as grading exams or assessing projects? How do you ensure fairness and clarity in these processes?

So first of all, the answer sheets we have is anonymous.

So that the person personal bias don't come into the picture.

2nd we have a solution ready with us and also we evaluate students answers in a manner that.

Even if they write in their own words and not the keywords.

They know that they have a better understanding the the concept. The if the concept is clear with the student, then we grade it in a proper manner. We give them good grades, but it's the concept is not clear. Then again, we teach them, we make them clear, we give them feedback and this is how the society goes on.

Thank you for outlining your evaluation approach. Ensuring anonymity, focusing on conceptual understanding, and providing constructive feedback are commendable practices for maintaining fairness and student development. Lastly, could you share your experience in guiding student research or projects? Specifically, how do you mentor students to produce high-quality work?

Sorry to interrupt, we're down to the last 5 minutes.

So I have guided a mentor, sorry MBA and BTEC students. I have mentored them for their project work. So first of all, I help them know what are the basics when you start with a project, what and how the project report is written. Once they have a clear respect, OK, these are the requirements when we write a project report, then I help them design how the data should be collected. Once they know how the data is to be collected, they collect.

Data and then I mentor them to with the statistical analysis process I help them know better or understand in a better way what statistical analysis is to be done, how it can be done so that it is more rigorous in nature, and also how the findings we get are more.

Applicable in practical context as well as helpful from a societal point of view.

And this is how the project report is drafted. Once the project report is drafted again, I review it.

And again, I provide constructive feedback and suggestions and this is how I mentored the students working on various projects.

Thank you for explaining your process. Guiding students through every step, from understanding project requirements to conducting rigorous analysis and applying findings practically, clearly demonstrates your commitment to fostering both academic and practical excellence. This concludes the verification of your skills. Thank you for sharing your insights. One moment while I finalize this process.

Professor, to begin, could you share which type of course or instructional approach you find most effective for introducing students to human resource management and why?

I believe we should start with organizational behavior, having inter individual behavior at first because it is very much important to know oneself. Once we know one, what we are, who we are, how we are, then we can go ahead how the teams work, how organizational structure works and hence it is very important to begin with individual differences or individual behaviors that one experience in an organization.

So organizational behaviour followed by human resource management and then how AI can be integrated in these processes.

Professor Saxena, based on your background, it seems like organizational behavior and human resource management are central to your academic expertise. Let’s begin by discussing your doctoral research conducted at IIT Jodhpur. Could you describe the focus of your Ph.D. research and share how it connects to organizational behavior or human resource management specifically?

So my doctoral thesis is all about feedback mechanisms to enhance performance in workplace and also how behavioral aspect and emotional aspects as well as cognitive load people experience because of the task they perform. How that can be balanced in a manner that performance can be optimized, emotions and employee well-being can be maintained, cognitive load can be at moderate levels and performance can be optimized.

Can be strategized in a manner that it is not in addition to the cognitive load, it helps as a medicine to reduce the cognitive load and help the employee clear, have a clear thought about the performance and enhance the performance.

And feedback.

Thank you, Professor Saxena. Your research focus is quite insightful. Let me delve a bit deeper. Firstly, how do you operationalize *feedback mechanisms* in your research? Could you provide an example of a specific feedback strategy or framework that you investigated to balance cognitive load, emotional well-being, and performance optimization?

So yes, starting with feedback frequency, which is one of the significant dimension feedback has, that is the number of times feedback is provided. If feedback is provided very much frequently, it adds on as a cognitive load and identity or it's the performance. And once if the feedback frequency is managed in moderate levels, it will optimize the performance. Same goes with positivity and negativity of the feedback.

That’s an intriguing perspective, Professor Saxena. Follow-up question: how do you translate these findings on feedback frequency and valence into actionable strategies within a real-world organizational setting? For example, how might a human resource manager apply your research to design an effective performance management system?

Our scheduled time for the interview is now up. Before we conclude, do you have any questions related to the role or the company?

So what are the facilities related to research provided by VIT for the new faculty joins?

At VIT Business School, supporting research excellence is a key institutional priority. They emphasize guiding research activities, supporting publications in international journals, and promoting R&D initiatives. Additionally, faculty members are encouraged to actively engage in industry–institution interaction and consultancy work, which often opens avenues for specialized funded research projects. The environment fosters collaboration and innovation, particularly in emerging fields like HR analytics and AI in HRM. If you want to know more about any specifics, feel free to ask.

No, thank you.

Professor, could you outline your 3-year research roadmap, especially within the field of Human Resource Management? Could you highlight how this strategy aligns with the objectives laid out in the job description, particularly in areas like HR Analytics or AI in HRM?

So first of all, within three years I need to have a good publication, that is publication and reputed journals like FT-50.

And also good project findings related to.

Human resource management and AI integration into it.

Having the the outcomes beneficial for stakeholders and society.

And also I believe.

That these research outcomes should be integrated in the course curriculum in such a manner that it will be helpful for student development as well.

So for this, first of all we need to know that the data is relevant.

How will you ensure the scalability of your research projects, particularly in mentoring junior researchers or students, to build a consistent pipeline of high-quality publications?

And the design to collect data is optimized like there are no loopholes while designing the data collection.

The experiments are.

Very much rigorous.

And analysis, statistical analysis, it is robust in nature. So like if one statistical analysis is done, there is another which is which actually reconfirm that okay, the findings of the first analysis are correct. And this is how we confirm the robustness, rigorousness of our research work.

How do you plan to utilize international collaborations to enhance the impact and visibility of your research, especially in boosting citation metrics and building a global academic footprint?

So using the international collaborations, first of all, when we have international collaborations, we have more diversified environment. We know what is happening in and across the world.

And once we are aware of it, we can have different ideas.

These ideas can be implemented by having new frameworks. Once we have new frameworks, we can work on it as those frameworks test the.

And then the practical implications that we have. So the most benefit, the biggest benefit that we get with international collaboration is the diversity. So this is how international collaboration helps.

How these are helpful to the society?

First of all, we will make the topic very much interesting. It should be practical in nature, so they know that OK things are happening in real world as well, so they take more interest into it. It should also be not individual, but in a group activity, so that they can interact among themselves. They know each other in a better way, learn new things from each other and this is how the practical world as well as works.

Professor, let's focus on a specific facet of your expertise. Could you delineate how you would implement an active learning model—for example, a Flipped Classroom—for a large-enrollment Human Resource Management course, specifically avoiding reliance on slides? How would you ensure student engagement in such a framework?