The “Octopus Organisation” – Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner @ the LSE

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It was great to host Phil Le-Brun at the LSE last night – though sad to be his missing co-author Jana Werner. They were presenting their new book “The Octopus Organisation” https://www.theoctopusorganization.com/ which recounts a number of anti-patterns organisations must overcome to face the complexity of modern AI led business. Jana and Phil are both executives in residence at Amazon Web Services, part of a team of 15 people worldwide who advise fortune 500 executives on technology adaption, innovation and culture change.

We live in a time where AI technologies promise to transform work, yet few organizations are managing to gain the broad and deep impact of that promise. Here at the LSE last week, I heard Microsoft’s key AI Innovator talk about an “acceleration problem” in which, for most organisations, the future is arriving faster than forecast – and much faster than they can harness this  “Intelligence as a Service”. 

In the USA a couple of weeks ago, I heard NVIDIA’s VP for AI arguing that AI has a “systems problem” – AI is struggling to be embedded in organisational processes and systems. These views chime with emerging academic literature on the challenges of effectively introducing AI and Agentic AI into organisations.

Given that organisations themselves can be thought of as a form of artificial intelligence – social, collective, coordinated and intelligent structures responding to the world – it is time to ask if their culture, structure, leadership, R&D, and operations are ready for this artificial intelligence?  

Are we at risk of just using AI to scale and increase inefficient bureaucracy we already have? I am thinking here about people who use GenAI to minute wholly unnecessary meetings, or use it to send ever more unnecessary emails? Are we at risk of creating, what our late LSE colleague Anthropologist David Graeber, might have termed “Bullshit AI Jobs”?

We discussed these and similar issues when Phil and Jana kindly consulted me in writing their book. They take a wholly different path and focus on preparing organisations and people for radical change like AI. Routed in deep thinking about people, technology and organisations, they focus on helping companies find ways to better adapt and learn. They don’t start with technology, they implore leaders to start with the organisation, and challenge what they describe as Antipatterns –the formulaic responses to complexity that, despite good intentions and surface-level appeal, consistently make things worse in all the companies they’ve studied.

Through interviews with executives in successful companies they have, as practitioners, sought to share how to overcome these antipatterns and build learning and adaptive organizations ready to address the challenges of AI today. Finally, it is a very practical book full of lessons and insight – and it’s already on my reading list for my students!

iSCHANNEL Journal published. (Vol 19)

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https://ischannel.lse.ac.uk/23/volume/19/issue/1

This editions’ editorial (By Gonzalo San Roman)

For the 19th edition of the iSCHANNEL the journal explores the dynamic intersection between emerging digital technologies and human behaviour, through rigorous and critical examination of how these reshape ethics, governance, and human agency. Reflecting the journal’s longstanding commitment to critical inquiry and contemporary research, this year the journal brings forth insightful articles that challenge the readers to continue questioning the assumptions embedded in digital infrastructures. Emphasizing the socio-technical nature of Information Systems (IS), this edition opens new areas of research in the field and bridges key knowledge gaps by developing theoretical and practical understandings based on the findings.

Embodying this year’s mission, Louis Bardet critically explores encrypted communication technologies and addresses the paradox of encryption, illicit actors, and legal frameworks. Positioned at the intersection between cybersecurity and governance, the article offers unique insights to privacy safeguards in encrypted communication and the need for regulatory approaches to ensure fundamental protections. Anna Hrytseniuk critically evaluates the role of Big Data Analytics on Supply Chain Agility and identifies how its efficiency and success comes from a balance of technological adoption and organisational adaptability. Linking Big Data and Learning Analytics within a higher education context, Florian Lüttgenau discusses through the micro-level, meso-level, and macro-level of audiences the need for integrated socio-technical approaches. Exploring the evolving ethics and responsibilities of AI-enabled lethal weapons, Nour Louhichi questions the accountability, responsibility, ethical dilemmas, and legislative role of governments in regulating such technology. Shifting the focus from warfare to misinformation, Yutong Shi highlights the threat posed by deep fake technology and its consequences in eroding public trust. To address this, the paper proposes practical governance frameworks and the need for improvement in current detection technologies. Integrating algorithmic bias and misinformation, Rosa Sooth proposes a critical literature review in the domains of economics, democracy, and public health. Notably, in the second contribution they analyse the role of transparency in such high-stake domains and the managerial trade-off that takes place. Emphasizing human-intelligent system collaboration, Amir Dotan critically explores how AI can be holistically embedded and proposes a socio-technical, macro-level perspective through Organisational Augmentation. Dahye Jung investigates the role of actors and power dynamics in digital platforms to critically evaluate existing literature on strategic partnerships between actors. Through a participatory design, Falka von-Niessen evaluates empirical evidence on the fairness of Online Labour Platforms in the gig work industry, highlighting the impact of AI interaction on labour fairness.

Finally, as the editorial team, we extend our gratitude to all writers, reviewers, and editors for this year’s iSCHANNEL. We also thank Dr. Will Venters, Lucy Lambe, and Yao Ma for their support and guidance in creating this issue.  

About this journal

iSChannel is an annual journal on the social study of information systems which is produced, edited and double-blind reviewed by the students of the LSE Information Systems and Innovation programmes, with advice from faculty. As a core subject, our journal focuses on the study of ICTs, and the social implications of technological innovation. Still, research works from other perspectives are considered for publication, provided that they place the discussion on ICTs at the core of analysis and problematisation.

LSE ISIG group is hosting the 15th Organizations, Artifacts & Practices (OAP) workshop in June.

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It’s great to have brought the OAP workshop back to the LSE after so many years away!

📣 Join the 15th Organizations, Artifacts & Practices (OAP) Workshop “Ordinary Democracy in the Making: Renewing our times and spaces of democratic representation in and through organization” on 5-6 June, hosted by LSE’s Department of Management in collaboration with Université Paris Dauphine – PSL, ESSEC Business School, and NEOMA Business School.

A pre-event, the 9th Dauphine Philosophy Workshop (DPW) “The Negative Ontologies of Time: Within or Beyond the Happening of Organizing?” will take place on 4 June at Université Paris-Dauphine, London Campus.

With keynote lectures by Santiago Espinosa, Mark Coeckelbergh and Mukulika Banerjee, panel discussions and over 20 parallel sessions, this event focuses on ontological and metaphysical discussions about organisations and organising in a digital era. The workshop is hosted annually by different universities around the world, and we are delighted to be welcoming you at LSE this year.

🧾 Explore the programme: https://lnkd.in/dX-Dvj9i

✅ Register your attendance here: https://lnkd.in/ewkCaDzE

We’re Hiring again! LSE Fellow in Information Systems and Innovation

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We’re hiring at the LSE for a 2 year Fellow position starting this September! Come work with Youngjin Yoo, Edgar Whitley, and many others in our leading group researching information systems and digital innovation.

LSE Fellow in Management (ISI)

LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university

Department of Management

LSE Fellow in Management (Information Systems and Innovation)

Salary from £42,679 to £51,000 pa inclusive with potential to progress to £54,730 pa inclusive of London allowance

This is a fixed term appointment for two years and this post will commence on 1 September 2025

The Department of Management at LSE seeks to appoint outstanding candidates in the area of Management (Information Systems and Innovation).  The department’s faculty and research strength is centred in Information Systems and Innovation, Employment Relations and Human Resource Management, Managerial Economics and Strategy, Marketing and Organisational Behaviour. The department’s faculty members are engaged in research and scholarly activity across LSE, through research centres such as the Centre for Economic Performance, the Behavioural Lab for Teaching and Research, and interdisciplinary institutes.  The department’s own portfolio of degrees includes the BSc Management, one-year and two-year MSc in Management, and six specialist one-year MSc programmes.   

The post holder will contribute to the Department’s teaching (postgraduate and/or undergraduate) and research activities in the discipline of Management (Information Systems and Innovation).   

The successful applicants must have completed or be very close to completing by the post start date, a PhD in Management including Information Systems and Innovation.  Applicants will have a very good knowledge of Management (Information Systems and Innovation) in their own specialism and breadth beyond that specialism.  As well as a developing research record in well recognised peer reviewed outlets, you will be able to work in close partnerships with fellow teachers, including on a one-on-one basis and in small groups, and provide effective support as necessary, as well as having excellent communication and presentation skills.

We offer an occupational pension scheme, generous annual leave and excellent training and development opportunities.

For further information about the post, please see the how to apply document, job description and the person specification.

To apply for this post, please go to www.jobs.lse.ac.uk. If you have any technical queries with applying on the online system, please use the “contact us” links at the bottom of the LSE Jobs page. Should you have any queries about the role, please email dom.facultyaffairs@lse.ac.uk.  

The closing date for receipt of applications is Sunday 8 June 2025 (23.59 UK time). Regrettably, we are unable to accept any late applications.

Workshop on APIs and Digital Ecosystems at ICIS 2024 – Keynote by Ben Eaton

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While very last minute we would like to invite anyone interested in Interfaces, APIs, the API Economy and boundary resources role in Digital Innovations Ecosystems to come to a relaxed round-table event from 2pm-4pm on Saturday 14th December at the ICIS conference 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand. https://icis2024.aisconferences.org/

Keynote Speaker: Dr Ben Eaton – “From Interfaces to Innovation Ecosystems: Redefining Boundaries Through APIs“

Ben Eaton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Digitalization at Copenhagen Business School and adjunct Associate Professor at Høyskolen Kristiania, Oslo. Ben received the ACM SIGMIS Doctoral Dissertation Award for his PhD thesis in Information Systems, which he completed at the LSE. His research interests broadly concern innovation on and within digital platforms and digital infrastructures taking into account the dynamics between architecture, governance and installed base. His work has been published in journals including MIS Quarterly, the Journal of Information Technology, Information Systems Journal, the Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Government Information Quarterly, and MIS Quarterly Executive.

Workshop Aims:

The aim will be to build a community of interest and share ideas for research and foster potential collaborations. All welcome, however seats are limited so registration would be on a first come first serve basis. Please note that the workshop is free to attend and is supported by the IRIS project (Interface Reasoning for Interactive Systems) on the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council -EPSRC grant (EP/R006865/1). We will feed back some of the key research from this project. 

The 2-hour workshop would begin with a keynote speech with time for Q&A, followed by two facilitated round table discussions on digital ecosystems and interfacing. 

Participation and Sharing of early stage research is absolutely welcome! If you have any ideas and would want to do something within the 2hrs, do let us know!

Key literature includes –

Gupta, A., Panagiotopoulos, P., & Bowen, F. (2023). Developing capabilities in smart city ecosystems: A multi-level approach. Organization Studies, 44(10), 1703-1724.

Pujadas, R., Valderrama, E., & Venters, W. (2024). The value and structuring role of web APIs in digital innovation ecosystems: The case of the online travel ecosystem. Research Policy, 53(2), 104931.

Wang, P. (2021). Connecting the parts with the whole: Toward an information ecology theory of digital innovation ecosystems. MIS quarterly, 45(1).

If you want to participate/ present your research/attend/ help with organisation of workshop, please feel free to contact Anushri Gupta (a.gupta140@lse.ac.uk) or Will Venters (w.venters@lse.ac.uk).

Looking forward to seeing you and engaging with the community at ICIS soon! 🙂 

LSE ISIG is hosting OAP Organizations, Artifacts & Practices [5-6 June 2025].

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The CFP of the 15th OAP Workshop is out! This year’s theme: “Ordinary Democracy in the Making: Renewing Our Times and Spaces of Democratic Representation in and through Organization”.

One theme I am personally particularly keen to see explored in the conference is governance arrangements for digital infrastructure and how “democratic” they are (or are not).

Join us on Thursday June 5 and Friday 6th June at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

There is also a pre-workshop (DWP) on the Wednesday 4th.


Co-chairs and program committee: Will Venters, Marc LENGLET, Hélène Bussy-Socrate, Anuschka Schmitt, Tomislav Karacic, Julien MALAURENT, Attila Márton, Jeremy Pitt, François-Xavier de Vaujany and Géraldine Paring

1727443349417Download

LSE Hiring Assistant Professor in Digital Innovation

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Even with two new people just starting as asssitant professors we are contining to recruit to our group! Please circulate!

JOB ADVERT TEXT:

Assistant Professor in Management (Information Systems and Innovation)

LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university 

For this post, we welcome applications from women and people from minority ethnic groups 

Department of Management

Assistant Professor in Management 

(Information Systems and Innovation)

Salary is competitive with Departments at our peer institutions worldwide.

Salary is no less than £61,466 per annum, the salary scale can be found on the LSE website

In addition this post will attract a significant market salary supplement which reflects current market conditions.

The Department of Management plays a central role in the LSE, a global, single-faculty, social science university located in the heart of London. The Department is organised into faculty groups of information systems and innovation; employment relations and human resource management; operations management; managerial economics and strategy; organisational behaviour; and marketing. The Department’s faculty are engaged in research and scholarly activity within their faculty groups and across LSE in research centres such as the Data Science Institute and other interdisciplinary institutes. The Department’s degree portfolio includes the BSc Management, a two-year Master’s in Management, and a number of specialist one-year Master’s programmes, including the MSc Management of Information Systems and Digital Innovation (MISDI).

The Department of Management at LSE seeks to hire an outstanding Assistant Professor belonging to the Information Systems and Innovation (ISI) group. The post holder will contribute to the intellectual life of the School by conducting and publishing outstanding quality research, engaging in high quality teaching as instructed by the Head of Department, and participating in School and Department activities.

In recruiting for this position, the LSE intends to build on the ISI group’s distinctive socio-technical approach to research and education by adding depth specifically in emerging digital innovations. All members of ISI faculty are expected to contribute to our flagship degree, MSc MISDI. We will prioritise applications that show good understanding of our teaching programme and research tradition.

Successful applicants will have a PhD or be close to completing a PhD in a social science discipline and/or an interdisciplinary field relevant to Management (Information Systems and Innovation).  A track record of internationally excellent publications, or a trajectory for achieving this, as well as a well-developed strategy for future outstanding socio-technical research in information systems and innovation that has the potential to result in world-leading publications is essential. We also require a demonstrable ability to teach on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

The other criteria that will be used when shortlisting for this post can be found on the person specification attached to this vacancy on LSE’s online recruitment system.

In addition to a competitive salary the rewards that come with this job include an occupational pension scheme, research incentive scheme with personal reward options, generous research leave (sabbatical) entitlement, collegial faculty environment and excellent training and development opportunities.

For further information about the post, please see the how to apply document, job description and person specification.

To apply for this post, please go to www.jobs.lse.ac.uk. If you have any technical queries with applying on the online system, please use the “contact us” links at the bottom of the LSE Jobs page. For queries about the role contact: dom.facultyaffairs@lse.ac.uk

The closing date for receipt of applications is Sunday 20 October 2024 (23.59 GMT). We are unable to accept any late applications.

LSE Information Systems and Innovation Group Colloquium 2024.

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I am proud to be chairing this year’s LSE Department of Management Colloquium on Digitalization, Interfacing and their Impacts.

Tuesday, 4th June 2024 09:00 – 18:15 @ The LSE Campus Marshall Building.

The Information Systems and Innovation Group within the Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science is pleased to announce a Colloquium on Digitalization, Interfacing and their Impacts which will be held at the LSE campus on Tuesday 4 June 2024. The Colloquium is an opportunity for IS researchers, at any level of experience and seniority, to discuss research related to key and emerging themes surrounding Digitalization in a constructive setting. Talks from noted global IS scholars will stimulate discussion on a range of different aspects of Digitalization, including the interfacing of complex systems and the opportunities and challenges these creates for business and society. Full details of the agenda, as well as abstracts of the talks, will be provided closer to the date. The event is organised by my EPSRC funded IRIS research programme: Interface reasoning for interacting systems (IRIS).

Speakers include:

Youngjin Yoo from The Weatherhead School of Management

Ulrike Schultze from The University of Groningen.

Further speakers and full agenda to follow shortly.

To book a FREE place visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/colloquium-on-digitalization-interfacing-and-their-impacts-tickets-853719105827

[Assistant Professor Job] We’re recruiting again!

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Having successfully just recruited two amazing new Assistant Professors to the Information Systems and Innovation Group here at the LSE we are seeking a third person to join! The advert is below but feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions! Also you’ll get to work in our brand new building above!

https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DGO930/assistant-professor-in-management-information-systems-and-innovation

LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university For this post, we particularly welcome applications from women and people from minority ethnic groups.  

Salary is competitive with Departments at our peer institutions worldwide.

Salary is no less than £61,466 per annum, the salary scale can be found on the LSE website
In addition this post will attract a significant market salary supplement which reflects current market conditions.

The Department of Management plays a central role in the LSE, a global, single-faculty, social science university located in the heart of London. The Department is organised into faculty groups of information systems and innovation; employment relations and human resource management; operations management; managerial economics and strategy; organisational behaviour; and marketing. The Department’s faculty are engaged in research and scholarly activity within their faculty groups and across LSE in research centres such as the Data Science Institute and other interdisciplinary institutes. The Department’s degree portfolio includes the BSc Management, a two-year Master’s in Management, and a number of specialist one-year Master’s programmes, including the MSc Management of Information Systems and Digital Innovation (MISDI). 

The Department of Management at LSE seeks to hire an outstanding Assistant Professor belonging to the Information Systems and Innovation (ISI) group. The post holder will contribute to the intellectual life of the School by conducting and publishing outstanding quality research, engaging in high quality teaching as instructed by the Head of Department, and participating in School and Department activities. 
In recruiting for this position, the LSE intends to build on the ISI group’s distinctive socio-technical approach to research and education by adding depth specifically in emerging digital innovations. All members of ISI faculty are expected to contribute to our flagship degree, MSc MISDI. We will prioritise applications that show good understanding of our teaching programme and research tradition. 
Successful applicants will have a PhD or be close to completing a PhD by the end of 2024 in a social science discipline and/or an interdisciplinary field relevant to Management (Information Systems and Innovation). A track record of internationally excellent publications, or a trajectory for achieving this, as well as a well-developed strategy for future outstanding socio-technical research in information systems and innovation that has the potential to result in world-leading publications is essential. We also require a demonstrable ability to teach on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. 

The other criteria that will be used when shortlisting for this post can be found on the person specification attached to this vacancy on LSE’s online recruitment system.

In addition to a competitive salary the rewards that come with this job include an occupational pension scheme, research incentive scheme with personal reward options, generous research leave (sabbatical) entitlement, collegial faculty environment and excellent training and development opportunities. 

For queries about the role contact: dom.facultyaffairs@lse.ac.uk. 
The closing date for receipt of applications is Sunday 26 May 2024 (23.59 GMT). We are unable to accept any late applications.

Join me in Chicago for the AOM CTO Doctorial Consortium [PhD Students].

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I am proud to be part of an amazing panel of faculty advisors for the AOM CTO Doctorial Consortium this summer in Chicago! Please circulate to relevant PhD Students!

The CTO Division of the Academy of Management is pleased to announce the 2024 Doctoral Consortium (DC) on Friday August 9th, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois. The DC is an opportunity for doctoral students to network, receive feedback on their research, and discuss career issues. All interested PhD students working on research at the intersection of communication, digital technology, and organizing are welcome to apply. We encourage diverse submissions from the full diversity of approaches to research on these phenomena, including behavioral, social, technical, and economic issues.

Faculty advisors include: 

1.     Corey Angst (University of Notre Dame, USA)

2.     Marleen Huysman (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands)

3.     Jingjing Li (University of Virginia, USA)

4.     Aron Lindberg (Stevens Institute of Technology, USA)

5.     Patrick Mikalef (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway)

6.     Shaila Miranda (University of Arkansas, USA)

7.     Eivor Oborn (Warwick Business School, UK)

8.     Jan Recker (University of Hamburg, Germany)

9.     Monideepa Tarafdar (University of Massachusetts, USA)

10.  Will Venters (London School of Economics, UK)

11.  Sam Zaza (Middle Tennessee State University, USA)

Travel support is available for some students admitted to the DC, pending approval from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Acceptance is based on a review of the application materials.

Preference for attendance and funding will be given to students who will have defended their dissertation proposals but not their dissertations by the date of the consortium, to those who have not previously participated in the CTO DC, and to those whose institutions or fields would not otherwise be represented.

The application includes:

1) A 5-page, double-spaced, 12-point extended abstract of the proposed dissertation research.

2) A letter of recommendation from dissertation chair/advisor supporting the student’s participation in the Doctoral Consortium.

3) A 1-page informational document with: Name of applicant; PhD program university/school affiliation; Dissertation title; Expected completion date; Educational background; Professional background/prior work experience; Future career aspirations. Please indicate whether you have attended the DC before.

Important dates:

– Due date for applications and letters of recommendation is May 10th, 2024.

– DC, Friday August 9th, 2024, from 10am to 4pm. Social event offsite will follow.

– PhD students poster reception, Saturday August 10th, 2024, 6:00pm (all mentors will attend the reception). 

Please email all application materials as attachments in a single email to Roberta Bernardi (roberta.bernardi@bristol.ac.uk). Please subject the email with the following: “DC CTO AOM 2024 application”.