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JMS Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence: Organizational Possibilities and Pitfalls

  • 1.  JMS Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence: Organizational Possibilities and Pitfalls

    Posted 08-16-2022 19:36

    Call for Papers
    ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ORGANIZATIONAL POSSIBILITIES AND PITFALLS
    Submission Deadline: 1st August 2023

     
    Special Issue Information Session: August 30, 2022, 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. EDT    Info Session Sign Up

    FULL CALL FOR PAPERS:  JMS - SI on Artificial Intelligence: Organizational Possibilities and Pitfalls


    Guest editors: 
    Dominic Chalmers, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, UK 
    Rick Hunt, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, USA 
    Stella Pachidi, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK 
    David Townsend, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, USA

    JMS editor: 
    Kristina Potočnik, University of Edinburgh Business School, University of Edinburgh, UK.

     

    OVERVIEW 
    After more than a half-century of frustrating false starts and expensive disappointments, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now impacting business and society in ways that technologists and futurists have long predicted (Chalmer, Mackenzie, & Carter, 2021; Obschonka & Audretsch, 2020; Townsend & Hunt, 2019). Such is the pervasiveness of AI, defined as "the ability of machines to perform human-like cognitive tasks, including the automation of physical processes such as manipulating and moving objects, sensing, perceiving, problem solving, decision making and innovation" (Benbya, Davenport, & Pachidi, 2020: 9), that it is being simultaneously used to control nuclear fusion (Katwala, 2022), revolutionize cancer therapy (Ho, 2020) and wage automated war (Johnson, 2019). AI has also been adopted within organizational settings, transforming a range of common workplace tasks. Recruitment processes now routinely use facial recognition to screen candidates (van den Broek, Sergeeva, & Huysman, 2021), sales functions become automated (Pachidi, Berends, Faraj, & Huysman, 2021), and new forms of employee surveillance are deployed, with often harmful consequences, to optimize labor (Rahman, 2021). Perhaps most significantly, activities previously thought to be the preserve of human cognition seem to be penetrated by AI tools and functionalities. For example, large language models such as GPT3 and PaLM are being experimentally applied to tasks that require abstract reasoning (Narang & Chowdhery, 2022) and creativity (Amabile, 2019).

    The diffusion of these technologies into daily organizational life is stimulating a range of new practices that require theoretical exploration and explanation. Specifically, for every advance brought about by AI, there is often a countervailing harm that tends to affect more vulnerable members of the workforce and society (Bender, Gebru, McMillan-Major, & Shmitchell, 2021; Crawford, 2021; Pasquale, 2019). Thus, while evidence shows that AI can empower individuals to achieve remarkable feats, this is balanced against numerous unintended consequences such as the use of AI as a means of unprecedented and unchecked managerial control (Kellogg, Valentine, & Christin, 2020; Zuboff, 2019), utter transformation of the organizing regime (Faraj & Pachidi 2021), humans doubting their own judgment (Lebovitz, Lifshitz-Assaf, & Levina, 2022), and workers trying to game the system (Cameron, 2022). To understand the conflicted nature of AI in organizations therefore, our special issue seeks to critically examine how the benefits and harms of AI can be navigated to achieve a range of positive organizational outcomes.

    Our special issue seeks to address four core areas.

    1. Research that enhances our theoretical understanding of AI in organizations.
    2. Work that  enriches empirical understanding of how AI is experienced by workers in organizations.
    3. Normative and meta-ethical theories of AI in organizations that reflect on how AI should be used to achieve specific organizational ends.
    4. Papers that critically examine the societal implications of AI at the organization and management nexus.

    These are by no means an exhaustive set of issues and opportunities, and we invite submissions that cover other topics that fall within the scope of this special issue. We would also like to note that we purposively adopt a broad understanding of AI, partly as we seek to adopt a 'big tent' approach to theory development, and partly because the concept is widely contested in theory and practice. 

    For more information about the Special Issue please join us for a Special Issue Information Session: August 30, 2022, 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. EDT.   You can sign up to attend the session at: Info Session Sign Up


    The full call can be accessed here: JMS - SI on Artificial Intelligence: Organizational Possibilities and Pitfalls


    Also, please feel free to contact any of the SI Call Editors directly with ideas and inquiries. 

    Dominic Chalmers: dominic.chalmers@glasgow.ac.uk 
    Rick Hunt: rickhunt@vt.edu 
    Stella Pachidi: s.pachidi@jbs.cam.ac.uk 
    David Townsend: dtown@vt.edu


    Richard A. Hunt 
    Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship 
    Pamplin College of Business 
    Virginia Polytechnic Institute 
    rickhunt@vt.edu 




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    Richard Hunt, Ph.D.
    Assistant Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship
    Director of Doctoral Studies in Management
    Virginia Tech
    Blacksburg VA
    rickhunt@vt.edu
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