Agency in the Machine Age: Implications for Organisational Theory
18 Oct 2023
12:00 -14:00
Times are shown in local time.
Open to: Members of the University of Cambridge
Castle Teaching Room (Cambridge Judge Business School)
Trumpington St
Cambridge
CB2 1AG
United Kingdom
Join our Organisational Theory and Information Systems Seminar
Speaker: Professor Paul Leonardi, UC Santa Barbara
About the seminar topic
As artificial intelligence and autonomous systems become ubiquitous, questions surrounding human agency, decision-making processes, and organisational roles are becoming increasingly pertinent. Professor Leonardi will explore how machine agency is redefining and reconstituting organisational agency and what it means for the evolving paradigms of organisational theory.
Specifically, he will discuss the dichotomy between human and machine agency and he will bring attention to the ways in which they can collaboratively enhance organisational efficiency, innovation, and adaptability.
Everything written up to this point was generated by GPT-4 using the following prompt: ‘Write an abstract for a talk that Professor Paul Leonardi would give titled: Agency in the Machine Age: Implications for Organizational Theory.‘
Clearly, organisational theorists need to begin taking machine agency seriously! Come to the seminar to see how closely GPT-4 could predict what Professor Leonardi will discuss (and what the real implications are for organisational actors in the machine age.)
Speaker bio
Paul Leonardi, PhD, is Department Chair and Duca Family Professor of Technology Management at UC Santa Barbara. He holds appointments in the Department of Technology Management and the Department of Communication. Professor Leonardi’s research, teaching, and consulting focus on helping companies to create and share knowledge more effectively.
He is interested in how implementing new technologies and harnessing the power of informal social networks can help companies take advantage of their knowledge assets to create innovative products and services. He is an expert on digital transformation. He has authored more than 70 articles that have appeared in top journals across the fields of Management, Communication, and Information Systems.
He also publishes his work for managers and executives in outlets such as Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. He is the author of 4 books on technological innovation and organisational change, including the award-winning, Car Crashes Without Cars and Tech.
Register
If you would like to register, or know more about this event, please email Luke Slater.