This AOM Scholars On... panel provides analysis on top future of work trends and predictions for 2023 and beyond in light of the following workforce developments:

• Increasing return-to-office trends in light of a waning COVID-19 pandemic 
• Widespread layoffs in tech, media, retail, and related industries 
• Looming threat of U.S. and/or global recession 
• Top challenges and opportunities for companies operating in these ever evolving workplace dynamics 

With these turbulent market conditions, just how can firms and employees optimally operate where business profits and employee happiness can be maximized? Is this outcome possible? To answer these questions, AOM Scholars discuss what artificial intelligence (AI) and automation mean for businesses and employees in 2023 and beyond. 

Research-based insights:

• The consensus across the panel is that the future of work is created by all of us because we ultimately control the technologies introduced and utilized in the workplace. Collaboration between managers and scientists creating the technologies needs to occur to have the biggest impact and best results, and to ensure that the human aspect of work remains at the forefront. 
• AOM Scholar Hila Lifshitz-Assaf urged for the introduction of new narratives surrounding the impact of new technologies in the workplace. She also emphasized that we, humans, have the responsibility to introduce new technologies into the workplace in an ethical way.
• As we introduce new technologies, we introduce new jobs and new efficiencies. Matt Beane and Melissa Valentine shared findings about the impact of artificial intelligence in the workplace:
  • Management and feedback systems use artificial intelligence to inform leadership and employees on productivity, organizational structure, and more.
  • Robots that enhance the efficiency of human workers, such as in fulfillment centers.
    

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Panel Moderator

“Right now, in the workplace, not all people are in the best place when it comes to how they feel, and yet this is increasingly important given the new type of jobs that we have… there’s really an urgent need to find more evidence-based solutions to improve how people feel at work.”

Jochen Menges, University of Zurich

Jochen Menges holds the Chair of Human Resource Management and Leadership at the Department of Business Administration and serves as the Director of the Center for Leadership in the Future of Work at the University of Zurich. He received his doctoral degree in management from the University of St. Gallen, spent a year at the Graduate School of Arts and Science at Yale University, and completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in psychology at the University of Heidelberg. He also works as a Lecturer in Organizational Behavior at Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge and has previously served as the Chair of Leadership and HRM at WHU—Otto Beisheim School of Management in Düsseldorf.

Jochen's research focuses on the social dynamics between leaders and followers, and on the role of emotions and motivation in organizational life. He studies how leaders can successfully inspire people to pursue collective goals and how people can work together in ways that contribute to their productivity and well-being. He has published his work in the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Harvard Business Review. Jochen is also an Associate Editor for the Academy of Management Discoveries and a member of the Editorial Boards of the Academy of Management Journal and The Leadership Quarterly. He received several awards for his research, among them in 2019 the Annual Prize for the Best Leadership-related Article (Institute for Leadership, Ivey Business School) and in 2016 the Academy of Management Annals Best Article Award for his work on group emotions. His discoveries have been featured in two TEDx talks and in the media around the world, including the BBC, CNN, The Economist, The Financial Times, Le Monde, The New York Times, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and Die Zeit.

In his research, teaching, and consulting, Jochen has worked with a diverse set of companies and organizations and is a co-founder of the Global HR Valley, which is a future-of-work ecosystem that is part of the Reskilling Revolution of the World Economic Forum, building a platform together with prominent businesses to prepare leaders and organizations for a changing world of Work. 

Panelists

“I think we need to find ways to honor more human connections as we deal with all these [new] technologies. It’s not at all obvious to me we need to sacrifice them for progress.”

Matt Beane, University of California, Santa Barbara

Matt Beane is an Assistant Professor in the Technology Management Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Matt studies work involving machine intelligence—specifically robotics. He asks when, where, and how workers, organizations, and even AI adapt to the introduction of intelligent technologies. Matt has done extensive field research in settings such as robotic pick and pack work in fulfillment centers, robotic surgery, robotic materials transport, and robotic telepresence in healthcare, elder care, and knowledge work.

Matt's research on robotic surgery was published in 2019 at Administrative Science Quarterly and Harvard Business Review, his related TED talk has over 1.9 million views, and his work on robotic telepresence was published in 2014 in Organization Science. He was selected in 2012 as a Human Robot Interaction Pioneer, and is a regular contributor to popular outlets such as Wired, MIT’s Technology Review, TechCrunch, Forbes, and Robohub. Matt also took a two-year hiatus from his doctoral studies to help found and fund Humatics, an MIT-connected, full-stack IoT startup. 

 

“We need to start generating more narratives than what we have [on AI]. We now almost only have two dominant narratives. One is this scary, anxiety provoking, this automation is replacing us, we’re going to be jobless. The other one is we’re going to be stronger than who we are, we’re going to be augmented, wired with AI… I think we have to generate more narratives; reality is way more complex..”

Hila Lifshitz-Assaf, Warwick Business School and visiting faculty at Harvard University

Hila Lifshitz-Assaf is an Associate Professor of Information, Operations and Management Sciences at New York University Stern School of Business. She is also a faculty associate at Harvard University, at the Lab for innovation Science.

Hila’s research focuses on developing an in-depth empirical and theoretical understanding of the micro-foundations of scientific and technological innovation and knowledge creation processes in the digital age. She explores how the ability to innovate is being transformed, as well as the challenges and opportunities the transformation means for R&D organizations, professionals and their work. She conducted an in-depth 3-year longitudinal field study of NASA’s experimentation with open innovation online platforms and communities, resulting in a scientific breakthrough. This study received the best dissertation Grigor McClelland Award at the European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) 2015, Best Administrative Science Quarterly (ASQ) paper based on dissertation (2018) and Best published paper elected by organizational communication and information systems division of Academy of Management (2018).

Hila investigates new forms of organizing for the production of scientific and technological innovation such as crowdsourcing, open source, open online innovation communities, Wikipedia, hackathons, makeathons, etc. Her work received the prestigious INSPIRE grant from the National Science Foundation and has been presented and taught at a variety of institutions including MIT, Harvard, Stanford, INSEAD, Wharton, London Business School, Bocconi, IESE, UCL, UT Austin, Columbia and Carnegie Mellon. Her work was recognized to have a strong impact on the industry; she received the Industry Studies Association Frank Giarrantani Rising Star award and the Industry Research Institute grant for research on R&D.

“Managers now have a lot more data and insight and possibility for surveillance. People don’t like to lose autonomy. When managers were not using heavy data systems to surveil, but to help workers learn how to measure their own decisions, the data became very empowering. Managerial control done to surveil is not effective.”