CBS Leadership - Research paper series

KL4.74 (Kilen)
Deadline for registration: 10/05/2022

INTRODUCTION

The Leadership Research Paper Series is a part of the CBS Leadership initiative that aims at making CBS the Nordic center for leadership knowledge, research and education – connecting academia and practitioners from both the private and the public sector. The Paper Series is a forum for junior and senior colleagues, as well as visiting and guest scholars, to present and discuss leadership research in progress from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and theoretical traditions. Presenters will receive constructive feedback from discussants and attendees with the aim of developing their papers and arguments for eventual publication. The Paper Series will also function to promote discussion and debate across CBS about leadership and leadership development.

PROGRAMME

PAPER 1

"Is the future of leadership a Mechanical Turk reversed?"
In this paper, I reflect on the increasing role of algorithmic management today by situating this trend in the context of a long-standing debate about the distinction between leadership and management. My guiding question concerns the role of humans in what might be called ‘algorithmic leadership’, understood as an advanced form of algorithmic management that is arguably gobbling up some of the exceptional qualities that are traditionally ascribed to ‘true’ leaders. Given the widely shared idea that business itself is (supposed to be) game-like, we may legitimately ask what will happen to things like ‘vision’, ‘gut-feeling’, ‘inspiration’ and ‘insight’ – qualities that are traditionally ascribed to exceptional business leaders – when AI and machine learning further develops. Will such ‘leadership’ qualities fall within the realm of the machine? If so, what will be left in terms of human leadership?

Presenter: Sverre Spoelstra
Discussant: To be announced

PAPER 2

"Extending hope: The communicative constitution of project promises in AI projects"
Hopes relating to the benefits of AI have risen and subsided again almost cyclically since the 1950s.  Project management research has been primarily concerned with how the promise of the benefits of AI are or are not realized in the implementation of AI projects. However, we know very little about how AI project leadership in situ handle the relation between promises and the evolving project reality. We demonstrate that facing the evolving reality, project management engages in specific practices, including expanding concepts, deferring objectives, and rerouting funds. Following Mouritsen and Kreiner, we theorize this managerial work as extending hope by which we locate project management of AI projects in a regime of hope rather than in a regime of truth.

Presenter: Frank Meier (co-authors: Ursula Plesner & Lise Justesen)
Discussant: Dan Kärreman, Professor, Department of Management, Society and Communication.

Nicole Ferry, Assistant Professor (Department of Management, Society and Communication) will facilitate the discussion