Steffi Haag

Prof. Dr. Steffi Haag is professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management at Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Business Studies at FAU and her Master’s degree in Finance & Information Management at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main. At the Institute of Information Systems at Goethe University Frankfurt, she wrote the first dissertation on the topic of shadow IT, which was awarded with the Research Award 2017 of the German Association for Data Protection and Data Security and the Dissertation Prize 2017 of the Association of Nuremberg Tax Consultations. After her doctorate, she worked as project researcher at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, as postdoctoral fellow at TU Darmstadt, as well as Assistant Professor of Information Systems at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. She spent several months doing research at the universities of Louisiana (LSU) and Colorado (CU), USA. Her research focuses on the tension between digital innovation and cybersecurity. In these fields, she carries out research in studies relating, e.g., to the use of shadow IT or the design of user experience in businesses.

Empowering Users by Purposefully Designing Artificial Intelligence Technologies

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies increasingly substitute human decision-making in many areas of life. AI technologies decide, for instance, which comments we see on Facebook or which prices on Amazon. While they are designed to better afford our tasks in private and work life, recent studies show that more and more users interacting with AI technologies feel powerless, stressed or addicted as the technology design motivates them to never want to leave again. The concept of empowerment describes how critical perceptions of autonomy, self-determination, or impact are for successfully performing tasks. While there is a long history of organizational behavior research on psychological empowerment at work, only a few studies so far have analyzed the role technology and its design play in individuals’ perceptions of empowerment. These studies show that user empowerment does not only drive the adoption and use of digital technologies but also boosts task performance and innovation.

The objective of this project is to contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of user empowerment in the AI context. In particular, the relationship between the design of AI technologies and users’ perceptions of empowerment is analyzed.