Sub-Plenary 2-4

Creativity, Innovation, and Artificial Intelligence

 

Friday, July 4, 2025, 16:00–17:30 EEST

Room:  Pierce Theater


Organizer:
Harris Kyriakou, ESSEC Business School, France

Panelists:
Stefan Haefliger, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden
Jeffrey V. Nickerson, Stevens Institute of Technology, USA
Ileana Stigliani, Imperial College Business School, United Kingdom
Alentina Vardanyan, ESSEC Business School, France
 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely hailed as a disruptive technology. AI enabled technologies, as advanced individual creativity support systems, have the capacity to encapsulate, refine, and challenge creativity theories, while also fostering the creation of new business models and accelerating product development efforts (Baden-Fuller & Haefliger, 2013; Wang & Nickerson, 2017). At the heart of this change is the increased use of AI in creative endeavors, which can affect not only how creative work is organized, delegated, and modularized (Kittur et al., 2013), but also how humans and machines orchestrate in product innovation processes (Recker et al., 2023).

Opportunities arise for organizations in relation to multimodal innovations that entail sensory reactions to artifacts. The role of aesthetics becomes increasingly important as AI, freed from traditional constraints, gives organizations the opportunity to explore new parts of the solution space that would not be discovered otherwise (Baldessarelli et al., 2022). For example, human-AI co-creative systems can support journalists in creating news reels by transforming articles into storyboards, enabling the exploration of multimodal narrative framings across the infotainment spectrum (Wang et al., 2024). As the speed, observability, and relative ease in investigating relationships across multiple modes and levels increase through the use of AI, multimodal technologies can foster multiple innovations in technologies, work practices, and knowledge (Bogers et al., 2022; Boland et al., 2007; Haefliger, 2025).
 
Against this backdrop, we believe the time is ripe to bring together leading interdisciplinary scholars with different foci and methodological preferences to discuss, provide direction, and debate our cumulative knowledge regarding the role that AI will play in the creative and innovative endeavors of organizations. The purpose of this subplenary is to take stock of what we already know and build upon the significant bodies of literature on creativity, innovation, and AI. We aim to highlight the limitations of drawing parallels to previous research and identify opportunities for contributing to our cumulative knowledge.
 
Understanding how AI tools, as transactive memory systems, can reshape knowledge creation in general, and the design of innovative products and solutions in particular, becomes of crucial importance (Brunswicker et al., 2023; Vardanyan, 2022). There is still much to explore, including how AI affects conversational and material practices, collective creativity, sensemaking, and organizing, as well as the future of crowd work (Kittur et al., 2013; Stigliani & Ravasi, 2012; Yu & Nickerson, 2011). Organization scholars have an important role to play in this evolution, as designers need a detailed understanding of the artifacts they intend to create and must guide the software tools they use effectively (Seidel et al., 2018).
 
The primary goal of our subplenary is for speakers and participants alike to learn from one another, and to stimulate a conversation that cuts across different paradigms, methodologies, and disciplines. Our focus will be twofold: On the one hand, rather than black boxing AI and viewing it as a static and indistinguishable entity, we will be focusing on its unique characteristics compared to past emerging technologies and how its use in creative work creates opportunities not only for theory development, but also for unique insights for practitioners. One the other hand, we will focus on identifying the challenges that arise due to the increased permeation of AI.
 
Consequently, our sub-plenary will be structured and revolve around the following overarching questions:

  • What’s different about AI? Does it constitute a catalyst for paradigm shift, and why? What are the unique, distinguishing features of AI, deeming it the most disruptive technology of our era?

  • How can we explore AI’s unique characteristics not merely in terms of technology, but as drivers of a new organizational order, necessitating a shift in our long-held assumptions pertinent to creativity, innovation, and value creation?

  • What are the opportunities and challenges for creativity and innovation research on AI? If AI indeed constitutes a catalyst for a paradigm shift, how will it transform the landscape of organizational research?

 

References

  • Baden-Fuller, C., & Haefliger, S. (2013): “Business Models and Technological Innovation.” Long Range Planning, 46 (6), 419–426.
  • Baldessarelli, G., Stigliani, I., & Elsbach, K.D. (2022): “The Aesthetic Dimension of Organizing: A Review and Research Agenda.” Academy of Management Annals, 16 (1), 217–257.
  • Bogers, M.L., Garud, R., Thomas, L.D., Tuertscher, P., & Yoo, Y. (2022): “Digital Innovation: Transforming Research and Practice.” Innovation, 24 (1), 4–12.
  • Boland, R.J., Jr., Lyytinen, K., & Youngjin, Y. (2007): “Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks: The Case of Digital 3-D Representations in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction.” Organization Science, 18 (4), 631–647.
  • Brunswicker, S., Haefliger, S., & Majchrzak, A. (2023): “The Effects of Human and Machine Feedback on Productivity in Innovation Communities.” Academy of Management Proceedings, Vol. 2023, No. 1.
  • Haefliger, S. (2025): “How to study technology when the nature of work changes.” JOCO, Journal of Openness, Commons & Organizing, 3 (2), 1–12.
  • Kittur, A., Nickerson, J.V., Bernstein, M., Gerber, E., Shaw, A., Zimmerman, J., Lease, M., & Horton, J. (2013): “The Future of Crowd Work.” Proceedings of CSCW ‘13: Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, San Antonio, Texas, February 23–27, 2013, 1301–1318.
  • Recker, J., von Briel, F., Yoo, Y., Nagaraj, V., & McManus, M. (2023: “Orchestrating Human-Machine Designer Ensembles during Product Innovation.” California Management Review, 65 (3), 27–47.
  • Seidel, S., Berente, N., Lindberg, A., Lyytinen, K., & Nickerson, J.V. (2018): “Autonomous Tools and Design: A Triple-Loop Approach to Human-Machine Learning.” Communications of the ACM, 62 (1), 50–57.
  • Stigliani, I., & Ravasi, D. (2012): “Organizing Thoughts and Connecting Brains: Material Practices and the Transition from Individual to Group-Level Prospective Sensemaking.” Academy of Management Journal, 55 (5), 1232–1259.
  • Vardanyan, A. (2022): “Employee-AI Augmented Collaboration: A Qualitative Study of Fashion Designers and Stylists.” Academy of Management Proceedings, Vol. 2022, No. 1.
  • Wang, K., & Nickerson, J.V. (2017): “A Literature Review on Individual Creativity Support Systems.” Computers in Human Behavior, 74, 139–151.
  • Wang, S., Menon, S., Long, T., Henderson, K., Li, D., Crowston, K., Hansen, M., Nickerson, J.V., & Chilton, L.B. (2024): “Reelframer: Human-Ai Co-Creation for News-to-Video Translation.” Proceedings of CHI ’24: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Honolulu, USA, May 11–16, 2024, 1–20.
  • Yu, L., & Nickerson, J.V. (2011): “Cooks or Cobblers? Crowd Creativity through Combination.” Proceeedings of CHI ‘11: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Vancouver, Canada, May 7–12, 2011, 1393–1402.
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Biographies

Stefan Haefliger is a Professor of Digital Innovation and Strategy at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden. In his research and teaching, he focuses on innovation and the future of markets as well as regulation and organizational design in innovation processes. Stefan’s current research on human-machine interaction focuses on automated feedback and the learning of professionals about how to work with and give autonomy to machines, in some cases allowing new ways of using information technology to re-define professional standards and practice.
 
Harris Kyriakou is an Associate Professor at ESSEC Business School, France. He focuses on how artificial and collective intelligence can enhance product development processes. Harris is the recipient of the Early Career Award by the Association for Information Systems, has been named among the Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors by Poets & Quants, and has served as an advisor on digitalization issues for the European Commission.
 
Jeffrey V. Nickerson is a Professor and Associate Dean of Research at the School of Business, Stevens Institute of Technology, USA. His research focuses on collective creativity, the way knowledge emerges from the interactions of people and machines.
 
Ileana Stigliani is an Associate Professor of Design and Innovation at the Management and Entrepreneurship Department, Imperial College London, United Kingdom. Her research focuses on collective cognition within and across organizations. In 2018, Ileana was recognized for her outstanding teaching by Poets & Quants. Her research and opinions have been featured in media outlets, like The Economist, The Financial Times, Forbes, the BBC, and the Guardian, among others.
 
Alentina Vardanyan is an Assistant Professor in the Management Department at ESSEC Business School, France. Her research focuses on AI and creativity at work. It explores how and why people collaborate and co-create with AI, as well as the psychological mechanisms that influence these choices, and their impact on employee creativity and innovation.