To read this content please select one of the options below:

Extremes of acceptance: employee attitudes toward artificial intelligence

Ulrich Lichtenthaler (ISM International School of Management, Cologne, Germany)

Journal of Business Strategy

ISSN: 0275-6668

Article publication date: 17 June 2019

Issue publication date: 21 August 2020

5351

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present paradoxical employee attitudes towards interacting with artificial intelligence (AI).

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual paper, which builds on prior research, especially on the widely accepted notion of not-invented-here attitudes in technology adoption.

Findings

Many companies experience barriers in implementing AI owing to negative attitudes among their employees. This paper develops the concept of no-human-interaction attitudes, which describe employees’ preference to collaborate with real humans rather than having virtual colleagues. If they perceive a benefit from voluntarily using AI, however, many employees exhibit positive attitudes, leading to the concept of intelligent-automation attitudes. Jointly, these attitudes lead to the paradox that the same persons may have positive or negative attitudes to AI, depending on the particular situation. Firms need to address these attitudes because the interface of human and AI will be a key driver of competitive advantage in the future.

Originality/value

The new concepts of negative and positive employee attitudes contribute to our understanding of firms’ success and problems in implementing AI. Moreover, the paradox of negative and positive attitudes among the same employees helps to reconcile partly diverging findings in extant studies. A thorough understanding of the roots of these employee attitudes, along with several examples, further provides immediate starting points for actively influencing these attitudes in practice.

Keywords

Citation

Lichtenthaler, U. (2020), "Extremes of acceptance: employee attitudes toward artificial intelligence", Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 41 No. 5, pp. 39-45. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-12-2018-0204

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles