1. DESCRIPTION
In the next five years, employers responding to a World Economic Forum survey expect a structural churn of 23% of jobs. Two core challenges drive major changes in the workplace and, in our reading, point to a need to better theorize the human-machine interface: the rise of generative AI (GenAI) technologies and the hybridity of the workplace post-pandemic. The growth of use and the arrival of infrastructure that builds on foundational AI models, to the point that authors refer to and speculate about artificial general intelligence, changes innovation processes and countless routines across industries (Moor et al., 2023; McLean et al., 2021; Ångström et al., 2023). The slow return to in-person work poses significant challenges to interaction and learning and we see companies taking different steps at encouraging workers to spend time in the office (see e.g. banks). The long-term trend away from permanent employment towards project work, gig work and so forth (Barley and Kunda, 2004) and, accelerated by the pandemic, hybrid work, emphasizes the social and spatial arrangements that support work practices outside the traditional employment and office routines (Aroles et al., 2019; 2021; Merkel, 2015, 2019; Tagliaro and Migliore, 2021).
As employees and managers, we are no longer separate from technology: we are inevitably involved and constantly connected. This implies theorizing closer to the connecting point between human thinking and action and machine thinking and action. Recent research in technology studies (see Bailey et al., 2022) advance a relational view on technology where the moment of use, the relation between human and machine, takes precedence over the entities and actors per se. In a sharp departure from how technology was treated during most the 20th century, as a black box that is essentially a self-contained, deterministic object, the growth of social technology studies (Bijker, 1997) and practice-based research of technology foregrounded the effects of material-discursive practices such as technology use over stand-alone characteristics (Leonardi, 2011; Feldman and Orlikowski, 2010; Hultin and Mähring, 2017). Taken together, this means that we need to study the relations that change when using technology, when touching screens, logging on, swiping and clicking through. The changing connections between people and, generally, between human and non-human entities is critical to understanding the future of work, collaboration and leadership. The levels of analysis range from micro- and practice-based changes in work to implications that are organizational, strategic, or boundary-spanning.
At the same time, change is uneven and organizations today look more like layer-cakes where the bottom is cast in stone and the top is following trends in an attempt to remain fresh: the basic structures of ownership, liability law, and incentive structures date back to the industrial age while innovation demands openness, co-creation, and associated unpredictability. Leading these change processes involves understanding how workers log in, contribute, learn, and in general interact with each other while remote, mobile, or both. Hybrid work allows employees to work from home or become digital nomads, searching for freedom and community in parallel to work (Woldoff and Litchfield, 2021).
Technology mediates new work practices to an extent unseen before because not only is mobility and distance no longer a hindrance to work and interactions but the content and counterpart of practices can become automated and augmented: generative AI is on path to become a partner instead of merely a tool. Metahuman systems (Lyytinen et al., 2023) take over organizational tasks and demand new direction, structure, and purpose. Organizations face a challenge that is new to them: What should work look like in a world where most (non-physical) work activities are linked much more to digital systems and interconnectedness than to a physical place of work? In the future of work, organizations struggle to remain the places where workers share a sense of belonging and anchor their identity (Petriglieri et al., 2018). The holding environment, which is a social context that supports sensemaking and the integration of emotions at work, becomes fragile when gig work dominates and apps appear as the faces of the organization. Work becomes ubiquitous, nonstop, and invading individual lives like never before (Cederstrom and Fleming, 2012; Cnossen, deVaujany, Haefliger, 2021).
To approach the interface and understand in more detail what leading the future of work from the interface entails we devise a basic but fundamental set of questions around our thinking, acting, and doing revolving around the ongoing decisions about where “a technology ends and an organization begins (Leonardi, 2023: xiv)”.
Space stands for the new material configurations of work including design, presence, and absence of people in the office, and the collaborations these practices allow. We approach the material context of hybrid work practices through a lens of leadership. To date, a large part of the extant research has implicitly assumed that leaders and followers work in physical proximity – or at least in the same workplace – whereas space has been given less attention. It has been suggested that the increasing adoption of a hybrid work model, particularly in white-collar work (Vyas, 2022), will lead to fundamental changes in not only where, how, and when we work, but also in our very idea of the workplace itself; challenging both taken-for-granted work practices, norms, and leader-follower interactions (Howard-Grenville, 2021). This, together with the increased use of digital tools in the workplace - either for human-human, human-machine, or machine-machine collaboration - also poses new questions for leaders on how to communicate, organize and manage work (Pantic-Dragisic & Pemer, 2024).
To explore this, we build in on recent advances in the research on leadership and space. This research acknowledges the relevance of context such as mediation and artifacts for the function of leadership to have impact (Spillane et al., 2004; Denis et al., 2012). It also highlights the dynamic process through which space shapes and is shaped by leadership (Beyes & Stayaert, 2011). Thus, rather than seeing space as a static container that is “already there” (Crevani, 2015), e.g., an office layout, space is seen as active, performing, and always under construction (Ropo & Salovaara, 2019). In this line of research, space, and leadership are regarded as mutually constituent, with space playing an important role in shaping leadership and collaboration through its material, aesthetic, and emotional qualities (Ropo & Salovaara, 2019). As such, leadership takes place not only in human-human relations, but also in human-material relations, including technology and space (Salovaara & Ropo, 2018). For instance, the architecture, design, colouring, etc., together with the introduction of sensory-enriching elements like art, sound, and texture in the workplace is likely to influence not only the individuals but also their collective work and identity. It can also be used to encapsulate and communicate the organization’s purpose to its members and stakeholders. Therefore, it becomes important to explore how the workspace shapes – and is shaped by – leadership and collaboration in organizations.
Central to such a view on space and leadership is the idea that leadership is not only embodied in a person or discerned in traits or practices, but created in the interaction between leaders, followers, and the spatial dimension (Horila & Siitonen, 2020). Leadership is thus a relational process, in which notions on what constitutes “good” leadership, how to enact leadership – and followership – are co-constructed (Uhl-Bien, 2006). Using relational leadership theory (RLT) as a theoretical foundation for the leadership studies in the project enables us to discern how leadership is “emergent and contextual, and located in the relational processes that facilitate the collective achievements of organizing, cooperating, and adapting” within a web of relationships (McCauley & Palus, 2021:2). Thus, the relational perspective shifts focus from the individual to the collective and regards leadership as a process that plays out within a web of relationships (McCauley & Palus, 2021:2, see also, Ropa & Salovaara, 2019; Uhl-Bien, 2006).
Initial Research Question: How can leadership support and take advantage of distant and technologically mediated knowledge work?
Further questions can include but point beyond these:
- How can the spatial and material context constrain/support hybrid and distant work as well as balance power and interests in intended ways?
- Through what processes is purpose built into spaces (office design and digital tools) and with what consequences?
- How does space allow for or afford new patterns in collaborations?
- What new stakeholders and entities enter collaboration or assume leadership roles in technologically mediated work?
While these questions are by no means comprehensive they are meant to inspire a direction for RGCS research that could find an axis around technology and leadership and question, in fundamental ways, who does the leading and what role technology, data, and relational dynamics play in collaboration and leadership.
2. POSSIBLE COLLABORATIONS
Envisioned activities for this axis include: conference tracks, special issues, reading circles, dedicated mailing lists and exchange platforms, literature review projects, interdisciplinary research projects or grant applications.
3. CHAIR(S) OF THIS STANDING GROUP
Stefan Haefliger would chair this Standing Group. He is professor of Strategic Management & Innovation at Bayes Business School.
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