CMU talk: Who Am I If a Robot Can Do My Job?

"Who Am I If a Robot Can Do My Job?
Identity’s Impact on Pre-Implementation Sensemaking and Subsequent Use of New Technology"

Pamela Hinds
November 09

Abstract
This talk will focus on research that I’ve been doing with Rosanne Siino and others on how people make sense of robots in the work environment. Based on an ethnographic study of the introduction of an autonomous mobile robot into a community hospital, we argue that sensemaking begins prior to the implementation of new technology, as actors learn about and prepare for the arrival of a technology. Using data collected during a community hospital’s pre-implementation of an autonomous mobile robot, we propose that the sensemaking process triggered by a technology’s anticipated introduction into an organization can commit people to certain understandings of the technology that impact its subsequent use. During the pre-implementation phase, individuals make sense of the technology by drawing on cognitive frames related to self- and organizational identities. Individuals take public actions during sensemaking, subsequently justifying those actions, with justifications leading to the actions’ repetition - a cycle that lays the seeds for the reinforcement, transformation and creation of structures. I will discuss the implications of this process for technology design, adoption and use within organizations.

Pamela J. Hinds is an Associate Professor with the Center on Work, Technology, & Organization in the Department of Management Science & Engineering, Stanford University. She conducts research on the effects of technology on groups. Much of her research has focused the dynamics of geographically distributed work teams, particularly those spanning national boundaries. Most recently, Pamela has been conducting research on professional service robots in the work environment, examining how people make sense of them and how they affect work practices. She serves on the editorial board of Organization Science and is co-editor with Sara Kiesler of the book Distributed Work (MIT Press). Her research has appeared in journals such as Organization Science, Research in Organizational Behavior, Human-Computer Interaction, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.