Posted by Following on from the considerations we presented a week ago in an interview with Prof. Richard Griffith on the pace at which human labor is being replaced by artificial intelligence, one can ask: how to theoretically represent cognitive processes in the human mind especially in the area of management and teamwork?
The answer to this question is the research carried out for more than a dozen years by Olaf Flak, PhD. In numerous publications he has presented his research results concerning first the theoretical concepts of the representation of the work of the manager and the team, and then empirical research. He presents his knowledge on the blog http://artificialmanagers.com/ , and below we present an excerpt from his article funded from a project we are carrying out at the Interdisciplinary Center for Human Resources Development, namely “Flow and effectiveness of a virtual team”, funded by the Polish NCN and the German DFG. See more here: https://projekty.ncn.gov.pl/index.php?projekt_id=498926
Artificial intelligence (AI) can support human intelligence in teamwork, but it is still unclear how to implement artificial management (Flak and Pyszka, 2022). Research on AI shows that it can support human teams in important ways, improving team coordination, increasing knowledge sharing and learning, supporting decision-making, and team evaluation and performance (Khakurel & Blomqvist, 2022).
In addition, the use of language models has increased in popularity across industries and has led to significant productivity gains in business operations (Bouschery, Blazevic & Piller, 2023). Artificial intelligence is said to have become a promising and increasingly accessible technology for managerial decision-making. With the adoption of AI-enabled software, organizations can take advantage of the various benefits of the technology, but they must also consider the intended and unintended consequences of using the technology for managerial roles (Leyer & Schneider, 2021).
In terms of performance, teams perform equally well in both types of management, with a trend toward even better performance for teams managed by artificial intelligence. Moreover, team members perceive interventions from both the AI and human manager as equally important (Gyory et al., 2021). Some research on mixed human-robot teams that include both robots and humans has attracted the attention of researchers from various disciplines (Wolf & Stock-Homburg, 2022).
This would be a true fulfillment of Drucker’s words that in the future “computers” will not only make decisions, but will do much more (Drucker, 1967). The search for an answer to the question of whether it is possible to replace human team managers with robots leads to a strong need to establish certain patterns of team manager work (Halliday & Stacey, 2009).
We can only replace the work of the manager and team members if we answer the simple question: what does the manager actually do? (Sinar & Paese, 2016). You can find the entire article on this topic and other publications right here: http://artificialmanagers.com/
Flak, O., & Pyszka, A. (2022). Evolution From Human Virtual Teams to Artificial Virtual Teams Supported by Artificial Intelligence. Results of Literature Analysis and Empirical Research. Management Issues, Vol. 20, No. 2(96), (pp. 48-69). https://doi.org/10.7172/1644-9584.96.3
Khakurel, J., & Blomqvist, K. (2022). Artificial Intelligence Augmenting Human Teams. A Systematic Literature Review on the Opportunities and Concerns. In: H. Degen, & S. Natoa, S. (Eds.), Artificial Intelligence in HCI. Lecture Notes in Computer Science: Vol 13336 (pp. 51-68). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05643-7_4
Bouschery, S. G., Blazevic, V., & Piller, F. T. (2023). Augmenting human innovation teams with artificial intelligence: Exploring transformer-based language models. Journal of Product Innovation Management. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12656
Leyer, M., & Schneider, S. (2021). Decision augmentation and automation with artificial intelligence: Threat or opportunity for managers? Business Horizons, 64(5), 711-724. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2021.02.026.
Gyory, J. T., Soria Zurita, N. F., Martin, J., Balon, C., McComb, C., Kotovsky, K., & Cagan, J. (2021). Human Versus Artificial Intelligence: A Data-Driven Approach to Real-Time Process Management During Complex Engineering Design. Journal of Mechanical Design, 144(2): 021405. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4052488
Wolf, F. D., & Stock-Homburg, R. M. (2022). How and When Can Robots Be Team Members? Three Decades of Research on Human–Robot Teams. Group & Organization Management. https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011221076636
Drucker, P.F., (1967). The Manager and the Moron. McKinsey Quarterly, December, http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/the-manager-and-the-moron
Halliday, R.M., & Stacey, M.J. (2009). Observation: the lost and found managerial skill. Northeast Decision Sciences Institute Proceedings, 380-385.
Sinar, E., & Paese, M. (2016). The new leader profile. Training Magazine, 46, 46-50.