Understanding Organizational Tensions During Artificial Intelligence Transformation

Abstract

AI has the potential to be a disruptive technology causing paradigm shifts in industries and greatly impacting both operational and strategic decision making. Adopting AI technologies requires proactively engaging both the technical and social system of the organization as processes, workflows, as well as individual employees, are influenced. This paper explores potential tensions between the social and technical systems in the early change process of AI transformation to understand the nature and degree of AI transformation. We do this by analyzing in-depth inquiry from 23 focus groups involving 112 white-collar industrial employees in large multinational industrial firms using a change management perspective. Our study revealed nine categories of tensions divided into tensions between the current and future state and tensions between humans and machines. This stresses the need to adopt a socio-technical perspective in the attempt to understand organizations approaching AI and provides practical implications for organizations considering adopting AI technologies.