Research Seminar: Professor Dirk Lindebaum

Title: More than a ‘tool’: a systems-theory perspective on how large-language models endogenously transform management knowledge (for the worse)

• Eimear Nolan, Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin
• Dirk Lindebaum, School of Management, University of Bath
• Mehreen Ashraf, Cardiff Business School

Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are often considered a ‘tool’ in management research. However, this perspective prevents a deeper systemic understanding of factors leading to their adoption, and how their presence as an epistemic technology transforms the production of management knowledge in toto. Adopting a deterministic view of LLMs as an epistemic technology, and defending the ‘purist’ position concerning the non-use of LLMs in research processes, we draw on Developmental System Theory to interrogate how LLMs influence (i) the production of management knowledge, and how (ii) that influence initiates epistemic feedback loops and practises that reduce the scope of truth and possible knowledge. Without this understanding, LLMs keep affecting the research process disadvantageously, and the resultant knowledge affects social relations in and around work problematically. Our model constitutes a diagnostic tool to understand how the use of LLMs in the research processes endogenously transforms knowledge production in management research - for the worse. In so doing, our model is also a tool of possible remedy, for it highlights that an exclusive focus on LLMs and their effects on the production of management knowledge will be insufficient to undo the epistemic feedback loops and practises already set in motion.

Bio: Dirk Lindebaum is Professor in Management and Organisation at the University of Bath School of Management (UK). He is curious about “values” as a meta-theme in his research, particularly in relation to theory building, learning/education, technology, and emotions at work. His work regularly appears in journals of international distinction, such as the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, and Human Relations. In addition, he is the author of the book Emancipation through Emotion Regulation (Edward Elgar, 2017). Despite his theoretical pursuits, the practical relevance of his research is regularly recognized in news outlets, such as the Financial Times, New York Times, BBC Radio 5 Live, Wirtschaftswoche, Daily Mail, Independent, FORTUNE magazine, and Bloomberg Business Week. Furthermore, he has published several practitioner-focused articles in MIT Sloan Management Review, one of which has been accepted into the Honor Roll of the Responsible Research in Business and Management network as an indication that his research serves the larger good.

Note: Tea/coffee and sandwiches will be served between 12 - 1 pm in front of Cafe Jolt on the Lower Ground Floor.

Photographs will be taken during this seminar and may be shared on social media. If you do not wish to appear, please notify tbs.research@tcd.ie.