Purpose– Thisstudy, a theoretical article, aims to introduce new institutionalism as a framework through which business and management researchers can explore the significance of artificial intelligence (AI) in organizations. Although the new institutional theory is a fully established research program, the neoinstitutional literature on AI is almost non-existent. There is, therefore, a need to develop a deeper understanding of AI asboththeproductofinstitutionalforces andas an institutional force in its ownright. Design/methodology/approach– Theauthorsfollowthetop-down approach.Accordingly,theauthors f irst briefly describe the new institutionalism, trace its historical development and introduce its fundamental concepts: institutional legitimacy, environment and isomorphism. Then, the authors use those as the basis for the queries to perform a scopingreview ontheinstitutionalrole of AI inorganizations. Findings– The findings reveal that a comprehensive theory on AI is largely absent from business and management literature. The new institutionalism is only one of many possible theoretical perspectives (both contextually novel and insightful) from which researchers can study AI in organizational settings. Originality/value– The authors use the insights from new institutionalism to illustrate how a particular social theory can fit into the larger theoretical framework for AI in organizations. The authors also formulate four broad research questions to guide researchers interested in studying the institutional significance of AI. Finally, the authors include a section providing concrete examples of how to study AI-related institutional dynamics inbusinessandmanagement.
Contemporary smart city solutions rely on standardized von Neumann architecture, in which single data units are coded as “0” or “1.” Conversely, urban quantum technologies rely on the fundamental principles of quantum physics, transcending the conventions of the current computational paradigm. On the one hand, urban quantum technologies hold managerial relevance for future smart cities. On the other hand, they are often overlooked by smart city researchers. Accordingly, their value as a breakthrough technological paradigm is still largely unexplored. In this article, we look at how quantum technologies may contribute to existing smart city solutions, including the Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data, ICT, smart transportation, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. First, through a semi-systematic review of eighty articles on quantum computing within the social science domain, we identify two relevant classes of urban quantum technologies: quantum communication and quantum computing. Second, we establish a comprehensive taxonomy of conventional smart city solutions based on the automated content analysis of 567 abstracts of articles on the technological aspects of smart cities. Third, we investigate potential associations between two classes of technologies (conventional smart city solutions and urban quantum technologies) by analyzing the semantic relationships between eighty articles on quantum technologies according to the frequency of keywords denoting different types of conventional smart city solutions. Finally, we triangulate our findings through a thematic analysis of potential uses of quantum technologies within identified categories of smart city solutions.
Today's cities are facing increasingly complex challenges. The growing uncertainty and complexity—caused by the unremitted differentiation of social, environmental, and technological orders—call for novel ways of conceptualizing urban reality. Although technology-oriented solutions shape the most efficient strategies to manage complexity in contemporary cities, ensuring an effective transition toward a Quantum City paradigm can grant considerable advantages for city administrators and managers facing looming urban challenges. In this article, we introduce the Quantum City metaphor—grounded in fundamental notions of quantum mechanics—as a new conceptual lens for investigating urban complexity. We then build upon the metaphor, theorizing a set of assumptions grounded in three fundamental concepts of quantum theory: relativity, uncertainty, and duality/parallelism. Finally, we propose an empirical conceptualization of Quantum Cities based on the concrete adoption of quantum technologies to deal with urban complexity. This is achieved through a systematic literature review of scholarly records on quantum technologies in the context of social sciences, emphasizing related urban problematics and challenges. Principal component analysis and agglomerative hierarchical clustering reveal two types of quantum technologies most useful for city planners and managers: quantum communication and quantum computing. Accordingly, we perform a qualitative thematic synthesis of related scholarly records, emphasizing the negative and positive aspects of both types of urban quantum technologies.
Bonab, Aysan Bashirpour; Bellini, Francesco & Rudko, Ihor (2023)
Theoretical and analytical assessment of smart green cities
As a locus of technological innovation, a smart city (SC) is a prototypical city of the future. Moreover, according to scholars, a smart city is also sustainable city. Nonetheless, the environmental aspects of urban sustainability are often de-emphasized in favor of discourses around the technical characteristics of SC technologies. In order to integrate the two, the article introduces the notion of a smart green city (SGC) in which technological means and environmental outcomes are in sustainable balance. SGC is presented here as a unifying concept integrating smart city and green city concepts through the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) framework. To illustrate the positive synergy between a city's greenness and smartness, we derive operational definitions of both based on the online media's attention to the related technology and sustainability initiatives. After calculating the two indices for all the cities worldwide with over one million inhabitants (498 cities), regression analysis is performed to determine the strength and direction of the relationships between a city's greenness and smartness. We find that a city's greenness is positively related to its smartness. Principal component analysis reveals a potential relationship between a city's population and the two indices. In particular, a large city's population negatively affects its greenness but positively affects its smartness. A joint index of smartness and greenness is negatively related to a city's population. Hence, the containment of uncontrolled urban growth is critical for successfully implementing SGC initiatives. The analysis results are of use to policy-makers, city managers, and planners intending to integrate the ESG framework into their future urban development strategies. Moreover, to our knowledge, a joint evaluation of a city's greenness and smartness has never been performed before on the inter-regional level of analysis. Accordingly, such a holistic assessment can be of methodological interest to scholars of smart and sustainable cities.
Different and profound are the consequences of the further development of artificial intelligence (AI) on society. One of the manifestations of the upcoming changes is the plethora of novel ways in which companies may organize labor and capital. So far, the influence of AI on organizational structure has been mainly studied from either a technological or a broader decision-making perspective. Our paper provides a unique take on the topic, emphasizing the distinctive role of human agency and its function in the upcoming AI-driven organizational changes. Relying on the existing academic literature, we theorized a set of hypotheses concerning best fits to the AI contingency on both macro and meso-organizational levels. To test whether the hypothesized changes might encounter organizational inertia or resistance from jobholders, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) was applied to the online survey results. Four types of current and potential jobholders were distinguished according to their explicit attitudes towards hypothesized organizational changes: skeptics, doubtful skeptics, optimists, and doubtful optimists, the latter consisting primarily of emerging adults. Finally, we developed a model of intraorganizational response to the AI contingency based on four theoretical groups of individuals, as determined by the analysis. Our findings showed doubtful optimists to be the most important group, able to set organizational trends and positively influence skeptics and doubtful skeptics. Accordingly, promoters of AI-driven organizational changes are advised to design their communication efforts around emerging adults. As the survey was conducted amid the COVID-19 pandemic, its sociological and managerial implications are relevant to the looming reality of the postpandemic world.
