How People Perceive and Judge Algorithmic Leadership

Author: Daan Stam (Rotterdam School of Management)

Title: Nowadays, companies use advanced algorithms in complex management tasks (Chamorro-Premuzic & Ahmetoglu, 2016; Möhlmann & Zalmanson, 2017; Wood et al., 2019). Soon, it is speculated that we could see algorithms even in leadership roles (Chamorro-Premuzic et al., 2018; Gloor et al., 2020; Parry et al., 2016). While it is one thing for algorithms to play a leadership role, it is another thing for people to perceive algorithms as effective leaders. If employees do not accept algorithms as leaders, any computational or technical advantages of using an algorithm to direct and coordinate employees' actions will be offset. Therefore, our research questions are: how do people perceive and judge algorithmic leadership? How can algorithmic leaders be most effective? We present research that aims to start answering these questions.

Host: Claudia Peus