In Pursuit of Data: Algorithmic Aspirations and Unplanned Consequences of Feeding AI Technologies
22 Apr 2024
10:00 -11:30
Times are shown in local time.
Open to: All
Room W4.05 (Cambridge Judge Business School)
Trumpington St
Cambridge
CB2 1AG
United Kingdom
Join our Organisational Theory and Information Systems seminar
Speaker: Professor Natalia Levina, New York University
About the seminar topic
The increasing production of data has emerged as a pervasive theme within modern organisations. The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that rely on vast datasets to learn and generate predictions raises new questions about how such data is produced in organisations and with what consequences. Drawing on a three-year ethnography of a Human Resources (HR) department that introduced an AI technology for job candidate selection, we uncover how the pursuit of data to feed algorithms led to significant transformations in organisational practices that were not fully envisioned or deliberately planned by organisational leaders.
We explain these transformations by showing how technology taps into and amplifies principles of scientific management already ingrained in organisational life. Specifically, we trace how algorithmic aspirations of objectivity, predictability, and continuous learning align with scientific management ideals, exerting strong performative pressure by luring members into datafying organisational practices while diverting attention from potential risks. We draw on the notion of a metalogic to conceptualise these shifts and offer implications for the literature on data production in organisations and studies on technology and work.
Speaker bio
Natalia Levina is a Paganelli-Bull Professor at New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business. Professor Levina’s main research interest is in understanding how people span organisational, professional, cultural, and other boundaries in the process of building and using new technologies. She uses qualitative field work as well as computational research methods and diverse organisational theories in her work. Her current research projects focus on understanding AI adoption in professional work, knowledge integration and governance processes in crowdsourcing communities, and impacts of blockchain technologies on society.
Her research has been published in Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, Organisation Science, Journal of Management Information Systems, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, and other outlets. She currently leads the PhD program in Information Systems and has previously served as the inaugural director of the Fubon Centre for Technology, Business, and Innovation. She was also appointed Distinguished Research Environment Professor at Warwick Business School. Professor Levina teaches undergraduate, MBA, and EMBA courses on digital strategy and innovation as well as a doctoral seminar on technology in organisations. Professor Levina received her BA in Computer Science and Mathematics and MA in Mathematics from Boston University.
She received her Doctor of Philosophy in Information Technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.
Register
No registration required. If you have any questions about this seminar, please email Luke Slater.