Claudine Gartenberg
Wharton, University of Pennsylvania
Corporate purpose in the age of AI
The emergence of artificial intelligence is systemically disruptive in the short run and may bring about an institutional transition comparable in scale to the industrial revolution in the long run. Management researchers therefore face our own grand challenge: the modern corporation emerged in the aftermath of the technological advances of 19th century. What does the current wave mean for the future of organizations and economic cooperation more generally?
Corporate purpose offers a productive framing for approaching this question, but only if we recover its original meaning that emerged during the early to mid 20th century. In the Berle-Dodd debates and in the work of Selznick, Barnard, and Follett, purpose was not a statement of strategic goals or social mission of the organization. Instead, it constituted a worldview about corporations’ role in society and as a means of mass cooperation. For a century, purpose has provided meaning and aspiration for employees, enabled entrepreneurs to mobilize resources around visions, and allowed firms to surmount otherwise intractable problems.
What becomes of this in the age of AI? At a practical level: how can purpose guide firms as they transform operations to harness AI capabilities? how should purpose guide leaders in reshaping their organizations? At a deeper level: Can purpose – in its original sense - help us make sense of emerging organizational forms and new modes of cooperation? Much of the debate on AI so far has been centered on job displacement, impact on careers, and innovation potential. My argument will focus on the need also to consider how organizations – as the key economic means of cooperation – will transform.
In this session, I outline a research agenda on corporate purpose and AI that engages these questions with the seriousness that Berle and Dodd, Barnard, Follett and their contemporaries brought to their era’s own institutional dislocations.
Bio:
Claudine Gartenberg is Associate Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Claudine’s research focuses on corporate purpose and corporate ownership, examining how these shape organizational practices and performance. Her current work is exploring the role of these factors in the AI transition. She serves as Senior Editor at both Organization Science and Strategy Science, and was formerly Associate Editor at Management Science. She is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and Associated Faculty at Penn's Institute of Law and Economics.