HKUST Business Review

ad bosses: We’ve all had one. From hateful, vindictive managers to seemingly incompetent supervisors, we’ve all been stuck working for someone whose human emotions and flaws interfered with their ability to manage effectively. In other words, being human can make managing hard. Could AI do better? It’s no longer a hypothetical question. Today, algorithms are already replacing countless management functions, and the International Data Corporation predicts that within the next few years, 80% of Forbes Global 2,000 companies will use AI to hire, fire, or train employees. Proponents argue that without the burden of human emotions, AI can manage more efficiently and consistently— but our recent research suggests that it’s not so simple. To explore the impact of being managed by AI, we conducted a series of studies with more than 800 workers across the U.S. and China. We started by interviewing 20 food delivery workers in Shenzhen, China about their perceptions of AI management. Then, we surveyed 400 additional food delivery drivers in Shenzhen and Linyi: Half were managed solely by an AI algorithm which assigned orders, penalized delays (through fines or account suspensions), and made termination decisions without human involvement, while the other half used the same AI-powered app but also had human managers who held daily check- ins, adjusted unfair AI-generated assignments, and helped riders challenge automated penalties. Finally, we conducted a scenario-based study in which we asked 400 U.S.-based employees to imagine working as delivery drivers for a food delivery platform. All participants were asked to imagine working with the same compensation and performance monitoring structure, but half were told they were working for an AI system, while the other half were told they were working for a human regional manager. AI MANAGERS MAY BE EFFICIENT— BUT DO WORKERS TRUST THEM? New research shows that workers trust AI managers less than human ones. Here’s how organizations can start to bridge the gap. LI Mingyu, T. Bradford BITTERLY Authored by ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR Insight 4 HKUST Business Review