Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in an Organizational Context: Analysis of the Factors Influencing the Adoption and Decision-Making Process

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) shifts the business environment to such an extent that this general-purpose technology (GPT) is prevalent in a wide range of industries, evolves through constant advancements, and stimulates complementary innovations. By implementing AI applications in their business practices, organizations primarily benefit from improved business process automation, valuable cognitive insights, and enhanced cognitive engagements. Despite this great potential, organizations encounter difficulties in adopting AI as they struggle to adjust to corresponding complex organizational changes. The tendency for organizations to face challenges when implementing AI applications indicates that AI adoption is far from trivial. The complex organizational change generated by AI adoption could emerge from intelligent agents’ learning and autonomy capabilities. While AI simulates human intelligence in perception, reasoning, learning, and interaction, organizations’ decision-making processes might change as human decision-making power shifts to AI. Furthermore, viewing AI adoption as a multi-stage rather than a single-stage process divides this complex change into the initiation, adoption, and routinization stages. Thus, AI adoption does not necessarily imply that AI applications are fully incorporated into enterprise-wide business practices; they could be at certain adoption stages or only in individual business functions. To address these complex organizational changes, this thesis seeks to examine the dynamics surrounding AI adoption at the organizational level. Based on four empirical research papers, this thesis presents the factors that influence AI adoption and reveals the impact of AI on the decision-making process. These research papers have been published in peer-reviewed conference proceedings. The first part of this thesis describes the factors that influence AI adoption in organizations. Based on the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework, the findings of the qualitative study are consistent with previous innovation studies showing that generic factors, such as compatibility, top management, and data protection, affect AI adoption. In addition to the generic factors, the study also reveals that specific factors, such as data quality, ethical guidelines, and collaborative work, are of particular importance in the AI context. However, given these technological, organizational, and environmental factors, national cultural differences may occur as described by Hofstede’s national cultural framework. Factors are validated using a quantitative research design throughout the adoption process to account for the complexity of AI adoption. By considering the initiation, adoption, and routinization stages, differentiating and opposing effects on AI adoption are identified. The second part of this thesis addresses AI’s impact on the decision-making process in recruiting and marketing and sales. The experimental study shows that AI can ensure procedural justice in the candidate selection process. The findings indicate that the rule of consistency increases when recruiters are assisted by a CV recommender system. In marketing and sales, AI can support the decision-making process to identify promising prospects. By developing classification models in lead-and-opportunity management, the predictive performances of various machine learning algorithms are presented. This thesis outlines a variety of factors that involve generic and AI-specific considerations, national cultural perspectives, and a multi-stage process view to account for the complex organizational changes AI adoption entails. By focusing on recruiting as well as marketing and sales, it emphasizes AI’s impact on organizations’ decision-making processes

Responsible AI and Analytics for an Ethical and Inclusive Digitized Society

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The impact of performance-related pay on employees’ performance: case studies of Omani public and private sector organisations

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Performance-related pay (PRP) has witnessed growing interest over the past two decades in Oman, alongside increasing attention to human resource management (HRM) practices. However, despite its continued adoption in various cultural contexts, gaps in its effectiveness remain the subject of widespread controversy. Consequently, this thesis is an attempt to examine the impact of PRP on various Omani public and private sector organisations in the form of four case studies. Three of these are on companies in the private sector which form the backbone of the Omani economy and one on a public sector organisation. The study gap lies in both the lack of studies on PRP in the public and private sectors in Oman, and the few numbers of studies in the pay literature in general in the region. The original contribution being made in this thesis lies in the attempt to bridge the research gap by viewing PRP systems through several lenses: from theoretical framework, managers, employees, contextual and documents (document analysis) perspectives. The different characteristics of the included organisations and the relevant findings can also be considered as an enhancement element of the originality and contribution of the thesis. However, with respect to the reservations of the participating organisations and to preserve their anonymity and confidentiality, they will be referred as Organisation A, B, C and D. Organisation A is a distinguished global organisation operating in Oman, while Organisation (B) is a local organisation working in the private sector. Organisation (C) is characterised by being a wholly-owned government organisation that operates in the private sector, and finally, Organisation (D) is a government entity operating in the civil service. Three research questions were formulated to provide a basis for the thesis structure. Accordingly, the mixed-method approach was adopted as a data collection strategy. The primary approach was face-to-face interviews with middle managers, while survey questionnaires were used with employees to measure their attitudes. In addition, document analysis was used to diversify the data sources and to increase confidence in the results. The thesis examination is based on a comparison of findings from multiple perspectives; for example, from those of middle managers, employees, document analysis, and the theoretical framework of the most important theories underlying PRP. These perspectives were then considered in the light of the literature review to determine the effectiveness of PRP in each organisation. The findings reveal that PRP in Organisations A and B was effective and achieved its goals. The reasons for this can be attributed to the methodological approach adopted in the implementation and operation of the PRP system, which were consistent with the strongest theories underlying the system, such as the agency theory, expectation theory and goal-setting theory, in addition to the systematic activation of the role of HRM and the effective development and preparation of middle managers. On the other hand, the findings related to Organisations C and D show that they do not appear to have achieved the sufficient objectives of PRP. Although the results were somewhat mixed, they revolved around the issues of fairness, favouritism, bureaucracy and the role of HRM.Oman Government

BILETA Response to UK Government Consultation: Data a new direction

This Government consultation presents proposals that build on the key elements of the current UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), such as its data processing principles, its data rights for citizens, and its mechanisms for supervision and enforcement. The proposals aim to deliver an even better data protection regime that will: Support vibrant competition and innovation to drive economic growth Maintain high data protection standards without creating unnecessary barriers to responsible data use Keep pace with the rapid innovation of data-intensive technologies Help innovative businesses of all sizes to use data responsibly without undue uncertainty or risk, both in the UK and internationally Ensure the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is equipped to regulate effectively in an increasingly data-driven world This consultation is the first step in the process of reforming the UK’s regime for the protection of personal data and reflects. This report elaborates on the British and Irish Law Education Technology Association (BILETA) perspectives on data protection reform

Forward through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity

First and foremost, this is the "people's report." What do we mean by that? Our primary audience for this report is the people of the St. Louis region. The report is directed to the average citizens whose daily lives are affected by the issues we explored, and whose lives will be impacted by the calls to action we make. With that in mind, we have written this report to speak to an audience of average citizens— not lawyers, legislators, academics, politicians, or policy wonks. We've written this report in plain language as much as possible. We've avoided jargon when we could, and tried to explain the jargon we used when we couldn't avoid it. Our goal is to present this important information in a way that anyone can understand. We recognize and have heard citizen feedback that official documents produced by commissions like ours can be written in a way that is hard for the average citizen to understand, and a chore to read.     It will take the application of public pressure to ensure that we push forward, and not just ease back into the status quo. We have tried to make this report readable and interesting. If it's interesting and easy to read, you're more likely to read more of it—and we want you to read it. The more this report is read, the stronger the actions toward implementation will be. If we hide important ideas behind stuffy language, or bury key information, we would be disrespectful to the people who invested their time and energy into the work, and worse, we would be diminishing the importance of what we were charged to do. That said, as you go deeper into the report platform, you may notice that the information does get more dense and complicated. While our focus is on speaking to the people, we also know that this platform must be detailed and specific enough to be useful in directly impacting policy decisions. We have tried to keep these sections clear and readable, while meeting the needs of multiple audience

Professionalism in the Information and Communication Technology Industry

Professionalism is arguably more important in some occupations than in others. It is vital in some because of the life and death decisions that must be made, for example in medicine. In others the rapidly changing nature of the occupation makes efficient regulation difficult and so the professional behaviour of the practitioners is central to the good functioning of that occupation. The core idea behind this book is that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is changing so quickly that professional behaviour of its practitioners is vital because regulation will always lag behind

Reflections of Systemic Justice? - Employees' and Supervisors' Experiences of Injustice in the Performance Appraisal and Merit pay Context

The perceptions of justice are important when the adequacy of performance appraisal and merit pay systems are evaluated. It has been suggested that justice can be violated by the formal system itself or by individuals using the system. However, previous definitions do not consider how these different sources are related to each other. In addition, previous justice research has mainly focused on the “receiver” point of view and has ignored the viewpoint of those responsible for unfair or fair actions. This dissertation sheds light on these research gaps by comparing employees and supervisors’ experiences of injustice in the performance appraisal process. The research questions are: 1) what kinds of procedural challenges do employees and supervisors identify with respect to the performance appraisal process in the merit pay context? What are the sources of these experiences? 2) How are procedural challenges identified by employees and supervisors related to the procedural and interactional justice rules defined in the literature? The data is based on semi-structured interviews with 48 employees and 24 supervisors collected from three government sector organizations. The method of the data analysis was a combination of an inductive grounded theory and more theory-driven approaches. Thus, in addition to theoretical contributions, this dissertation also makes a methodological contribution to the field by approaching the justice construct from a point of view rarely taken in previous studies. According to the results, experiences of injustice were related to three main categories: measurement of performance, the link between pay and performance, and the performance appraisal interview. Supervisors were more concerned about performance measurement challenges and employees were more concerned about the interactional issues in the performance appraisal interview.Results showed that both procedural and interactional justice rules can originate from both formal and informal sources. In addition, their interrelations created injustice experiences. Based on these results, the model of systemic justice is presented. It suggests that the perception of systemic justice is affected not only by the formal rules of the system itself, but in particular, through the relations that the system has with its context and individuals using the system. Practical implications suggest that more attention should be paid on fit between pay system and its context in order to promote perceived fairness of the system.Aikaisempi tutkimus on osoittanut, että kokemukset oikeudenmukaisuudesta ovat keskeisiä palkkausjärjestelmän toimivuuden kannalta. Erityisen tärkeitä ovat kokemukset menettelytavoista, joiden kautta tiettyyn palkkapäätökseen päädytään. Vaikka aikaisempi kirjallisuus on tunnistanut, että oikeudenmukaisuuden kokemus voi syntyä sekä virallisista että epävirallisista lähteistä, tähän liittyvä tutkimus on ollut vähäistä. Edelleen on epäselvää, miten nämä eri lähteet eroavat toisistaan ja mitkä ovat niiden keskinäiset suhteet. Lisäksi aikaisempi tutkimus ei ole huomioinut riittävästi eri toimijoiden oikeudenmukaisuuden kokemuksia. Erityisesti esimiesten näkökulmaa on tutkittu vähän. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitetään näitä tutkimusaukkoja laadullisin menetelmin, joka on harvinainen tutkimusote aikaisemmassa oikeudenmukaisuustutkimuksessa. Tutkimus tarkastelee työntekijöiden ja esimiesten työsuorituksen arviointiin liittyviä kokemuksia menettelytapojen oikeudenmukaisuuden teorioiden valossa. Työssä selvitettiin 1) millaisia menettelytapojen haasteisiin liittyviä kokemuksia (syyt ja lähteet) työntekijöillä ja esimiehillä on työsuorituksen arviointiprosessiin liittyen. 2) miten kirjallisuudessa esitetyt menettelytapojen oikeudenmukaisuussäännöt liittyvät näihin kokemuksiin.Tutkimuksen aineisto koostui 48 työntekijä- ja 24 esimieshaastattelusta, jotka kerättiin kolmesta julkishallinnon asiantuntijaorganisaatiosta. Aineiston analyysisi tehtiin kaksivaiheisesti sekä aineistolähtöistä (Grounded theory) että teoriaohjaavaa analyysiä hyödyntäen. Tulosten mukaan epäoikeudenmukaisuuden kokemukset työsuorituksen arvioinnissa liittyvät joko 1) työsuorituksen mittaamiseen, 2) arviointien ja palkan väliseen kytkentään tai 3) työsuorituksen arviointihaastatteluun. Esimiehet ja työntekijät tunnistivat lähes samat haasteet mutta painottivat niitä eri tavoin. Tutkimustulokset osoittavat, että palkkausjärjestelmäkontekstissa haasteiden lähteitä ei voida yksiselitteisesti määritellä. Kyse on pikemminkin virallisten ja epävirallisten järjestelmien ja toimijoiden keskinäisten suhteiden yhteensopimattomuudesta. Työ esittää systeemisen oikeudenmukaisuuden mallin, jossa systeeminen oikeudenmukaisuus määrittyy sekä järjestelmän virallisten sääntöjen että yksilötason soveltamisprosessien kautta. Tulosten käytännön merkitys korostaa kontekstin ja palkkausjärjestelmän yhteensovittamisen tärkeyttä järjestelmien oikeudenmukaisuutta määrittelevänä tekijänä