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This paper reports the panel discussion on the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and robots in our lives. This discussion was held at the Digitization of the Individual (DOTI) workshop at the International Conference on Information Systems in 2019. Three scholars (in alphabetical order: Ting-Peng Liang, Lionel Robert and Suprateek Sarker) who have done AI- and robot-related research (to varying degrees) were invited to participate in the panel discussion. The panel was moderated by Manuel Trenz.

This paper introduces the topic, chronicles the responses of the three panelists to the questions the workshop chairs posed and summarizes their responses, such that readers can have an overview of research on AI and robots in individuals' lives and insights about future research directions.

The panelists discussed four questions with regard to their research experiences on AI- and robot-related topics. They expressed their viewpoints on the underlying nature, potential and effects of AI in work and personal life domains. They also commented on the ethical dilemmas for research and practice and provided their outlook for future research in these emerging fields.

This paper aggregates the panelists' viewpoints, as expressed at the DOTI workshop. Crucial ethical and theoretical issues related to AI and robots in both work and personal life domains are addressed. Promising research directions to these cutting-edge research fields are also proposed.

As early as Johan Huzinga’s (2016, 89–188) landmark exploration of play, Homo Ludens (1949), death has been recognised as integral to play. Today’s digital games continue this close association. Whilst the past half-century has trended towards limiting the impact of player-death, permanent-death (permadeath) games provide a less-forgiving environment. As the first digital adaptation of Games Workshop’s cult-classic tabletop skirmish game, Mordheim: City of the Damned (Rogue Factor, 2015) utilises permadeath to emphasise death’s inevitability and harsh reality in the precarity of its gothic post-apocalyptic setting. Whilst the majority of apocalyptic videogames follow the comic frame, the player has no agency to overcome or change the events of Mordheim’s apocalypse, setting it firmly in the gothic frame. It is substantially less about overturning disaster or saving the city, and decidedly more about looting its shattered corpse. The close reading of Mordheim: City of the Damned’s theme of death for this chapter identified that death and injury are simply accepted realities; ubiquitous, yet normalised. Whilst every death is significant – through permanently lost warriors – there is always another willing replacement available. Viewed alongside the warband’s primary purpose – that is service to their patron – warriors’ deaths not only become expected and relatively meaningless, but also financially connected. Rather than encouraging association with their warbands, players are subtly shifted to aligning with their patron, viewing the warbands and their warriors as an expendable means towards gaining digital kudos points and bragging rights amongst the other digital noble.

Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, and it is included in the Dark Triad with Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Narcissism relates to many detrimental outcomes, but a growing stream of research has investigated beneficial outcomes of the Dark Triad. The authors continue this stream of research by assessing the relation of narcissism with social courage behaviors, which are prosocial actions with personal social risks. The authors propose that this relation is mediated by self-deceptive enhancement and subjective invulnerability and also test these relations while including the other Dark Triad dimensions.

The authors perform two survey studies to investigate our research questions. The first utilizes a cross-sectional approach, whereas the second utilizes a time-separated approach.

The results of this study show that narcissism has an indirect effect on social courage via both mediators, and it also produced a significant direct effect. Machiavellianism and psychopathy did not produce any reliable effects on social courage – whether direct or indirect.

The authors support that a “dark” trait relates to a “bright” outcome, but also that a bright outcome relates to a dark trait. These findings link the narcissism and social courage to novel theoretical frameworks, such as those associated with ethical decision making and self-regulation, which opens many directions for future research on both constructs.

The current article addresses two recent calls for novel research: the study of courage as well as positive outcomes of negative traits. It also adds much-needed nuance to current research on narcissism and courage.

This study investigates the quantitative aspect of the various strains of operational excellence (OE) and competitive-potential (CP) in the SME sector. It has five steps, i.e., identifying the key performance constructs of OE and their hypothesized relationship pattern from literature, validating these constructs through factor analysis, formalizing their empirical relationships by structural-equation-modeling (SEM), path analysis of performance constructs with the empirical results, and lastly proposing a framework for OE deployment in SMEs.

Data for the deployment scores of operational excellence procedures (OEPs) were collected through a structured questionnaire survey. Nine hundred participants from a stratified random sample were approached for the survey, and 473 responses were received. Sample stratification was based on Gender, Education, Experience, Position, Department and Industry. Respondents had 5–30 years of experience managing manufacturing operations, holding the manager position and above.

The path analysis of the structural model provides unique insights into OE's practical aspects in SMEs (small and medium enterprises). For example, Contractual-conformance and Process-efficiency play pivotal roles as both have a significant positive impact on CP. Supplier efficacy, Consistency and Product-excellence do not improve CP unless mediated by Contractual-conformance or Process-efficiency.

The study provides important implications for academia, policymakers and managers. The study identifies and validates the operational excellence key performance practices and proposes a framework for manufacturing organizations. SME managers can follow the framework to develop effective operational excellence strategies to help them achieve their organizational goals. Additionally, the study emphasizes the need for continuous culture in SMEs, which will help to support operational excellence deployment. Overall, the implications presented in the study will help SMEs to enhance their competitiveness and operational performance.

The study explores the empirical investigation of the operational excellence deployment in SMEs. The study uses a mixed method approach for research design, including qualitative and quantitative approaches, and uses SEM to test the proposed framework. Validation of OE's six key performance constructs and establishing their empirical relation is an attempt to advance the Operations excellence theory. Unlike large enterprises, SMEs demonstrate an incohesive response to the practices pertaining to Supplier efficacy, Consistency and Product-excellence. This unique response pattern requires special treatment, which is incorporated into the proposed framework.

This chapter is an exercise in speaking, letting individuals speak for themselves insofar as possible. As Marx famously put it, “they cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.” The “they” were peasants, potato farmers in 1840s France, and by extension peasants, workers, and other lower class groups, not to mention women and minorities who rarely made it into the historical record, and even more rarely in their own words. To give “voice to the voiceless,” as the now old new social historians of the 1960s and 1970s put it, I consciously include here numerous speakers, arranged in two sets of different voices: quotes in the text and endnotes to further document and amplify points. With this plethora of voices, the aim is not to complicate but to speak clearly, listen carefully, and engage respectfully. To multiply the speakers speaking is the single best way to make two primary points concerning what is most important about the Chief Illiniwek mascot controversy: that the sheer number of individuals speaking out is in itself significant, and that this community colloquy all comes down to identity – who we are, individual identity, communal identity.

One of the strongest and most important outcomes of trait social courage is employee voice, but researchers have only studied this relationship with unidimensional conceptualizations of voice. The purpose of this paper is to apply Van Dyne et al.’s (2003) three-dimensional conceptualization of voice, which also distinguishes three dimensions of silence, to provide a nuanced understanding of the relationship of social courage with voice and silence. The authors also test for the moderating effect of three contextual influences: top management attitudes toward voice and silence, supervisor attitudes toward voice and silence, as well as communication opportunities.

The authors conducted a four-timepoint survey with each measurement occasion separated by one week. A total of 134 participants completed all four timepoints.

The results support that social courage positively relates to prosocial voice and silence, whereas it negatively relates to defensive voice and silence as well as acquiescent voice and silence. In other words, social courage positively relates to beneficial voice and silence as well as negatively relates to detrimental voice and silence. The results also failed to support any moderating effects, suggesting that the relationships of social courage are very resilient to outside forces.

These findings both test prior results and discover new relationships of social courage, which can further stress the importance of courage. The authors also draw direct connections between the influence of social courage on the surrounding workplace environment – as well as the influences of the environment on social courage. While the current paper provides insights into social courage, it also directs future researchers toward new insights of their own.

Courage is an emergent research topic within organizations. While many authors have assumed that courage is important to work, the current paper is among the few to empirically support this notion.