17056: The Institutional Impact of AI

This PDW hopes to inspire participants to study the impact of artificial intelligence on institutional development. Much of the recent literature have focused on explaining how new information technologies, particularly platforms, operate as institutional technologies that lead to the creation of new market structures. However, these studies assume the centrality of the firm as the institutional entrepreneur in explaining how institutions form and change. With the development of big data, cloud computing, blockchain, artificial intelligence and other technologies that optimize systems based on algorithms that process user-generated information and other big data sets rather than a centralized programming entity, the agency of the central firm in the institutionalization process is becoming more dispersed. This algorithm-driven institutionalization process overturns extant institutional theory and requires a joint effort of researchers from different fields, especially organizational theory and technological change, to better understand the implications on how AI is expected to interact and alter institutions. After an introduction to the PDW, participants will be treated to brief presentations on how AI challenges institutional theory, what AI means for theory on technological change, new institutional and organizational forms driven by AI, and the role of regulation contingent on the form of AI. Then, an open plenary will permit participants to discuss possible approaches and suitable methods, as well as assess research ideas through interaction with the panel and with other participants. The workshop closes with final remarks on future joint opportunities.