Alexander Richter

Victoria University of Wellington · Wellington School of Business and Government

This study explores the potential of Human-AI Collaboration (HAIC) use cases as a tool for prospective sensemaking. Based on 14 interviews with executives of an automotive company, we identify and categorize HAIC use cases that can help organizations anticipate and strategically respond to the impact of HAIC. Feedback from the case company shows th...

Though human-AI collaboration (HAIC) is increasing, significant challenges persist in its effective adoption. Based on a systematic literature review, we propose a framework encompassing 15 obstacles to the adoption of HAIC in organizations, organized into three components of competence learning: knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Important obstacle...

The world is currently facing a range of environmental challenges, including climate change, resource depletion, and biodiversity loss. Human-AI collaboration (HAIC) offers new momentum for addressing these issues. However, there is no comprehensive understanding of how HAIC can impact environmental sustainability. We conducted a systematic literat...

Visibility is an important ingredient of team collaboration. As hybrid work arrangements become more common, many organizations encounter difficulties in maintaining the necessary levels of visibility. We approach this issue by studying the use of visibility artifacts, i.e., technologies aimed at providing and channeling visibility. Based on a lite...

Hybrid work is now an established practice in many organizations, yet many struggle to maintain effective communication, particularly among remote teams. A major challenge in remote settings is the invisibility of non-verbal cues, which alter employees' ability to read and interpret intentions (Bagemann et al., 2024). It has been shown that delayed...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to profoundly disrupt many industries and domains, including innovation, but there is a lack of comprehensive overviews of existing insights. This systematic literature review identifies seven key dimensions within organizational innovation practices that are significantly influenced by Human-AI Collab...

As Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is encroaching further on our work and social environments, we examine the increasingly common situation where teams of white-collar workers include both humans and AI. We explore three key themes via a comprehensive (n=122) systematic literature review: key success factors, use cases for human-AI teams, a...

Internet of Things (IoT) solutions are still far from using their enormous potential, partly because misconceptions lead employees to avoid using IoT solutions and stick to established working routines. To shed light on the non-rational perspective of users, which allows for inference on the emergence of cognitive misconceptions, 489 respondents' p...

Our study explores the potential of human-AI collaboration (HAIC) through semi-structured interviews with 14 executives. We identify 63 HAIC use cases and classify them using a novel matrix combining value chain and group work activities. Most use cases identified are related to firm infrastructure and technology development, with very few pertaini...

Im Zentrum dieser Arbeit steht die Rolle von Communities in modernen Organisationen und insbesondere die Messung ihres Erfolgs. In diesem Zusammenhang führen wir „Online Community Health“ als Konzept ein, das einen nachhaltigen Blick auf die Entwicklung einer Community erlaubt. Die Kombination verschiedener Dimensionen (Inhalte, Interaktivität, Atm...

Information Radiators (IRs) provide context-specific pieces of information in a semi-public place where a group of people can see it while working or passing-by. They can simplify information sharing “out-of-the-box”, foster awareness and socialization, create serendipity and enhance collaboration. Recent sociotechnical developments such as the est...

Avatars are visual representations of actors in digital environments. While avatars are well-established in some domains such as gaming, their role in current and future work environments is still unclear, specifically, when it comes to their potential to facilitate visibility. A systematic review of 53 scholarly articles leads us to identify six k...

As organizational leaders and employees navigate the new landscape of hybrid work, two additional technological innovations are quickly becoming prevalent: Human-AI Collaboration and new forms of presence in virtual environments recently conceptualized as Metaverse. Whereas both developments are still in early stages, the example of generative AI h...

The shift towards hybrid work, blending remote and in-office activities, has become increasingly popular. Despite the advantages of the hybrid work model, like flexibility and inclusivity, challenges persist, including impacts on team cohesion and blurring boundaries of private and work. Aiming at optimizing hybrid work arrangements across various...

The term Inclusive Artificial Intelligence (Inclusive AI) comprises issues of AI bias and inclusive design, but also emphasises AI's potential to promote inclusion across diverse fields. Based on a systematic literature review, we found that the academic discourse has mostly tackled AI bias and design, while the issue of fostering inclusion with AI...

Although there are many exciting case studies of Augmented Reality (AR) use across various industries, adoption rates have been behind expectations since many years. Through 16 in-depth interviews with AR experts from three countries involved in AR projects, the study seeks to uncover the obstacles they encountered in AR implementation, as well as...

The amount of remote work has drastically increased over the last few years and this rapid transition has been analysed in great detail. But we lack a comprehensive and consistent picture of this change. This study addresses this gap by systematically reviewing and synthesizing findings from 84 research papers and identifying 14 signs of this chang...

We begin this conceptual paper, by outlining three recent developments in the context of the changing the nature of work: (1) the increasing proportion of remote work, (2) the quickly expanding use of (generative) AI applications, and (3) the growing advancements in virtual world technologies and platforms. We argue that the synthesis of these deve...

Despite the crucial role of creativity in the dynamic and intricate practice of Information Systems Development (ISD), our understanding of its emergence in ISD teams is limited. Prior research has focused on isolated interventions into the people, structure, task, and technology components of ISD practices. However, the syner-gistic interactions b...

Fueled by recent technological developments and reinvigorated through the hype around the Metaverse concept, virtual worlds are becoming increasingly popular as platforms for social interaction, entertainment, and commerce. This study applies transaction cost theory to explore smart contracts' potential in virtual worlds, specifically Decentraland,...

Despite its increasing use in various settings, Augmented Reality (AR) technology is still often considered experimental, partly due to a lack of clear understanding of the benefits of using AR. This study systematically reviews research on the use of AR in learning settings. Our analysis of 93 relevant articles offers 21 benefits related to the le...

Hybrid work experienced a surge due to the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing with it reduced visibility of cues used to facilitate effective teamwork and work coordination. While previous research suggests that virtual environments can help re-establish visibility, there is no comprehensive picture of the role of visibility in hybrid work. Based on a sys...

Literature reviews serve various purposes. For instance, they can pinpoint research gaps or act as independent research endeavors, placing significant emphasis on the content of the literature itself (Okoli and Schabram 2015). Particularly in the latter case, the chosen literature holds central importance in framing and discussion. Therefore, the s...

Information systems development (ISD) requires dynamic and flexible ways of working, particularly when developing requirements in collaboration with customers. Although prior research has acknowledged the importance of objects to support ISD practices, there has been a lack of frameworks to help discern the multiple overlapping roles objects play t...

The Metaverse is not a radical departure. It is an incremental evolution. Previous virtual worlds, like Second Life, have laid the groundwork for the development of the Metaverse by providing valuable insights into virtual environments and social interactions. Studies of these earlier platforms contribute to a more nuanced understanding of what the...

An abundance of individual cases have explored and explained the Digital Transformation and, ultimately, proven its capability to create new value propositions. Moreover, various meta-studies have provided us with classifications and frameworks to synthesize existing knowledge on the topic. Yet, there is a lack of studies integrating industry-speci...

Organizations have been increasingly exploring storytelling as a valuable strategy to engage customers to increase their attention and retention. Social media platforms like Instagram have become essential tools for many brands to use storytelling through influencers. In this study, we explore the narratives constructed by digital influencers, as t...

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistin- guishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts...

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistinguishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts f...

Transformative artificially intelligent tools, such as ChatGPT, designed to generate sophisticated text indistinguishable from that produced by a human, are applicable across a wide range of contexts. The technology presents opportunities as well as, often ethical and legal, challenges, and has the potential for both positive and negative impacts f...

Aufgrund des großen Erfolges von sozialen Medien im privaten Umfeld beschäftigen sich auch Organisationen zunehmend mit dem Potenzial sogenannter Enterprise Social Software (ESS). Im Organisationskontext kann ESS dazu beitragen, dass die Kommunikation transparenter und schneller, die Zusammenarbeit effizienter und die Unternehmenskultur partizipati...

Over the last years, Augmented Reality (AR) technology has been increasingly used in various settings. Yet, AR is still often considered as experimental, which is partly due to the unclear picture of the benefits of using AR. This study systematically reviews research on using AR in learning settings. By examining 93 relevant articles, we identifie...

Due to the COVID-19 lockdowns and the related mandated work for home, we have seen a massive increase of the use of collaboration tools in various work settings in the last 18 months. Whereas this might have been a new terrain for some, IT-supported work and the related research domain Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) have been around for...

The creation of data-driven services generates new value streams, leading to the emergence of new actors and ultimately to new market configurations. In the automotive industry, the data generated by vehicles during use paves the way for new types of data-driven services. Based on interviews with eleven prominent experts of the Central European aut...

Cloud brokers are intermediaries supporting the evaluation, selection, and implementation of cloud services. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises with limited technical competencies struggle with a complex and non-transparent market, selecting and combining services from different cloud service providers. They need guidance in the pre-adop...

Modern digital work environments allow for great flexibility, but can also contribute to a blurring of work/life boundaries and technostress. An emerging class of intelligent tools, that we term Digital Productivity Assistant (DPA), helps knowledge workers to improve their productivity by creating awareness of their collaboration behaviour and by s...

Information systems (IS), introduced as part of the digital transformation efforts of many manufacturing companies, redefine the role of a prior digitally disconnected workforce group: Shop floor workers (SFWs). Their evolution-from routine workers to empowered operational knowledge workers and process facilitators-challenges both the individual an...

Digitisation has established itself as the change maker par excellence in business, science and society. Infrastructures, working methods and skills are at the forefront of many debates and increasingly determine the future viability of entire industries. We have obviously embraced the permanent change with increasing acceleration. But: Where is th...

Die Workshopserie "Smart Collaboration" (2019-2020) bzw. Smart Factories" (2014-2018) findet 2020 bereits zum siebten Mal statt. Aus diesem Grund möchten wir die Gelegenheit nutzen, zurück zu blicken und über die Entwicklung des Workshops und dessen Fokus zu reflektieren. Hierzu greifen wir auf jene 66 Beitragseinreichungen zurück, die als Teil der...

The successful introduction of new digital tools on the shop floor and the evaluation of their impacts on workers and their work practices are challenging tasks. Choosing and applying the right evaluation approach, methods, and measures to analyze the impact of digital interventions is a challenging task. To support researchers and practitioners in...

Covid-19 and the related lockdown in many countries made digital work no longer just an option, but the new norm for many office workers who began to make sense of a new range of benefits of digital work tools. Based on my own observations and on observations shared by executives in New Zealand and Europe, I illustrate in this article how the lockd...

Organizations increasingly implement processes-oriented setups like value stream production. Whereas this transition may bring many advantages on an organizational level, related studies show that shop floor workers feel less able to maintain close contact with others and exchange awareness cues. Their diminished social connectedness has consequenc...

Der Begriff Enterprise 2.0 fasst verschiedene Entwicklungen in Organisationen zusammen, deren Gemeinsamkeit darin besteht, dass Informationshierarchien durch die Förderung von freiem Austausch in hierarchieunabhängigen Netzwerken bei gleichzeitiger aktiver Beteiligung aller Mitarbeiter ersetzt werden. Zur Umsetzung dieser Ideen leistet Social Softw...

The workplace of the future focuses on how and what work is done, not where and when it is done. Thus, organizations increasingly provide new and innovative information technology (IT) to create the workplace of the future by effectively facilitating digital work. However, digital work means more than just using new, innovative IT. Along with incre...

The voluntary use of private devices by employees without the formal approval of the IT department, commonly termed Shadow IT, is an increasingly widespread phenomenon. In this article, the authors study the role of private smartphones (and related applications like WhatsApp) in knowledge-intensive practices in the manufacturing domain. With an in-...

Manuscript accepted for publication in the "Business Horizons" journal (2020).

As ever more companies encourage employees to innovate, a surplus of ideas has become reality in many organizations – often exceeding the available resources to execute them. Building on insights from a literature review and a 3-year collaboration with a banking software provider, the paper suggests a Digital Idea Screening Cockpit (DISC) to addres...

Digital artefacts are increasingly used for supporting innovation practices, implying a growing need to better understand their role in different contexts. In this paper, we study how digital artefacts enable and constrain innovation practices by means of an in-depth, multi-year qualitative field study at a software firm. Analysing the usage of Pow...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reveal how information and communication technology (ICT) can empower shop floor workers in collaborative manufacturing environments. Design/methodology/approach The authors gather data from a mobile maintenance department of a steel manufacturing company and apply the method of a scenario-based design. Th...

The implementation of Health Information Systems (HIS) has been heralded as bringing numerous benefits to the healthcare sector. When implementing a HIS, the attitudes of the various users (nurses, doctors, admin people) towards the HIS can be influenced by a number of different factors. User support has proved to be one of the most important ones....

Recent digital advancements, including social software, mobile technologies and augmented reality, offer promising opportunities to empower knowledge workers in their production environment by leveraging their knowledge processes, decision-making skills and social interaction practices. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for empowering work...

This article identifies Digital Work Design (DWD) as a research area and a (grand) challenge of business information systems engineering. Building on a thorough understanding of existing human work practices and the subsequent design and implementation of ICT artifacts, DWD reinstates the human worker at the core of information systems development...

The successful introduction of new digital tools and the evaluation of their impacts on the shop floor workers, their skills and work practices are challenging tasks. Research and practice are struggling when it comes to choose and apply the right evaluation approach, methods and measures. In order to contribute to this challenge, we present a stud...

While ever more companies use Enterprise Social Networks for knowledge management, there is still a lack of understanding of users’ knowledge exchanging behavior. In this context, it is important to be able to identify and characterize users who contribute and communicate their knowledge in the network and help others to get their work done. In thi...

Despite the advent of a flurry of digital technologies, paper prevails on manufacturing shopfloors. To understand the roles and value of paper on the shopfloor, we have studied the manufacturing practices at two state-of-the-art automotive supplier facilities, applying ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, as well as photo and document analy...

With more companies using Enterprise Social Networks (ESN) for employee communication and collaboration, the influence of ESN on organizational hierarchies has been subject of discussions in science and practice. Conversely, the question if formal hierarchies affect interaction inside ESN and outside (i.e., personal interaction or interaction via t...

The ongoing digitalization of many corporate functions, including the innovation process, brings about fundamental changes that urge us to rethink established theories. Facilitating digital innovation requires a deep understanding of the actual practices that are carried out by innovating people with the help of artifacts. In this paper, we study t...

The current wave of digitalization has important implications for manufacturing companies. In this article, we suggest applying the theoretical lens of value co-creation as a comprehensive approach to explore the potential of digitalization trends. We use it to identify the potential of better integrating shop floor workers in the shaping of digita...

Aufgrund des großen Erfolges von sozialen Medien im privaten Umfeld beschäftigen sich auch Organisationen zunehmend mit dem Potenzial der Enterprise Social Software (ESS). Im Organisationskontext können Werkzeuge wie Weblogs und Wikis dazu beitragen, dass die Kommunikation transparenter und schneller, die Zusammenarbeit effizienter und die Unterneh...

Die „Digitalisierung der Industrie“ und Schlagworte wie „Industrie 4.0“ und „Smart Factory“ sind aktuell in aller Munde. Doch gleichzeitig fällt es vielen Praktikern und Forschern schwer, diese Begriffe einzuordnen, um konkrete Anwendungsfälle für Innovationsprojekte zu identifizieren. Insbesondere die (neue) Rolle des Mitarbeiters beschäftigt Unte...

A new generation of information technology (IT), promises significant benefits for manufacturing companies in their daily work. However, the companies are rather slow in taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the current wave of digitalization. This paper starts with an overview of emerging sociotechnical trends in manufacturing. We discu...

A new generation of information technology (IT), promises significant benefits for manufacturing companies in their daily work. However, the companies are rather slow in taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the current wave of digitalization. This paper starts with an overview of emerging sociotechnical trends in manufacturing. We discu...

The voluntary use of private device by employees without formal approval of the IT department, commonly termed Shadow IT, is an increasingly widespread phenomenon. In this paper, we study the role of private smartphones (and related applications like WhatsApp) in knowledge-intensive practices in the manufacturing domain. With an in-depth case study...

Storytelling is an important but often underestimated practice in software engineering. Whereas existing research widely regards storytelling as creating a common understanding between developers and users, we argue that storytelling and prototyping are intertwined practices for innovators to persuade decision makers. Based on a two-year qualitativ...

Due to the rapid technologic change, we see the role of manufacturing workers continuously changing: the increasing automation of manufacturing processes has reduced the amount of manual work, whereas the increasing complexity of manufacturing systems requires workers to build-up broader and deeper skills. In this paper, the authors suggest a parti...

Aufgrund des großen Erfolges von sozialen Medien im privaten Umfeld beschäftigen sich auch Organisationen zunehmend mit dem Potenzial der Enterprise Social Software (ESS). Im Organisationskontext können Werkzeuge wie Weblogs und Wikis dazu beitragen, dass die Kommunikation transparenter und schneller, die Zusammenarbeit effizienter und die Unterneh...

Aufgrund des großen Erfolges von sozialen Medien im privaten Umfeld beschäftigen sich auch Organisationen zunehmend mit dem Potenzial der Enterprise Social Software (ESS). Im Organisationskontext können Werkzeuge wie Weblogs und Wikis dazu beitragen, dass die Kommunikation transparenter und schneller, die Zusammenarbeit effizienter und die Unterneh...