MBA 510 Week One Discussion 1 Replies. 50 word min.

Reply to the TWO students' discussion posts—minimum 50 words.

Contributions must display original thinking and good knowledge of the subject matter, including links and references to sources to support your arguments. Additionally, make sure you cite sources you reference in-text and under a “References” section in APA format. 

Devin Schweikart

The future organizational structure of businesses is likely to be impacted by AI in various ways. Traditionally, many companies have operated with multiple levels of management and a hierarchical reporting structure. As AI takes on many of the tasks related to scheduling, reporting, data gathering, and analysis, fewer managers may be required to accomplish the work of a business. This will likely result in more flattened organizations in which employees take on greater responsibility for their work and decision-making, with senior leaders shifting to planning, creative, and ethical oversight roles (Davenport & Ronanki, 2018). The second impact of AI on the organizational structure of business is the increasing presence of AI-enabled teams. Employees are likely to use AI technologies to help analyze data, solve problems, and complete tasks with greater speed. Instead of having a single job title and task list, they may take on a range of responsibilities, shifting as needed to meet the needs of the organization. In the future, employees with strong technological, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills will be more highly valued than those who can complete repetitive manual tasks (Di Battista et al., 2023). Third, it is anticipated that businesses will become increasingly virtual, agile, and flexible organizations. Cloud-based business infrastructure will allow companies to operate effectively without necessarily having brick-and-mortar facilities or large numbers of full-time employees. As a result, remote employees may become the norm, with many contractors instead of employees. Teams may be distributed geographically, yet able to collaborate seamlessly through digital communications tools and AI infrastructure (Davenport & Ronanki, 2018). Finally, the role of leadership is also likely to evolve. While AI systems will be better at information gathering and analysis, machines lack the human attributes of judgment, emotional intelligence, and ethical decision-making. Therefore, the human workforce is still likely to need leaders to help guide decision-making, coach and motivate employees, and create a positive work culture (Di Battista et al., 2023). In summary, it can be concluded that the presence of AI in business environments is not likely to result in their disappearance, but rather will lead to significant changes in the organizational structures of businesses that adjust to this reality.

References

Davenport, T. H., & Ronanki, R. (2018). Artificial intelligence for the real world.  Harvard Business Review,  96(1), 108-116.

Di Battista, A., Grayling, S., Hasselaar, E., Leopold, T., Li, R., Rayner, M., & Zahidi, S. (2023, November). Future of jobs report 2023. In  World Economic Forum (pp. 978-2).

Brandon Parran

With the greater adoption of artificial intelligence, businesses start to move away from traditional structure (hierarchy) toward more adaptable (technology-driven) systems. A significant transformation that will take place is the greater automation of such routine processes as data entry, scheduling, customer service, and even basic financial analysis. This will lower the administration that needs a high number of employees and enable organizations to have small yet specialized workforces. The skill of strategic thinking, creativity, and problem-solving, which AI can hardly imitate, will become more prominent among employees.

The other probable shift is the increase in flatter organizational structures. Middle management can downsize or change as AI systems are involved in reporting, forecasting, and performance monitoring. It will result in leadership teams making quicker and more sound decisions as managers will be able to work with real-time insights created by AI instead of the lengthy reporting processes. Based on McKinsey, productivity and speed can be greatly enhanced in companies that are making decisions through AI (Charlotte et al., 2024). Moreover, companies might be transformed to be more project-oriented instead of department-oriented. By using AI-based tools to organize work, companies are able to create temporary teams of people focused on a certain objective rather than having strict departments. This leads to inter-functional cooperation and invention among functions like marketing, finance, and operations.          

Remote work will also increase because AI-based communication, monitoring, and task management systems will allow it to manage distributed teams with much less difficulty. Firms will no longer be bound by the geographical physical location in recruiting talent, hence the global and diversified workforce (Charlotte et al., 2024). Even such tools as Microsoft Copilot and the AI workspace provided by Google already exemplify ways AI contributes to gradual collaboration.

Lastly, there can be a change in business leadership itself. In addition to business knowledge, executives will require good knowledge of technology and data ethics. The process of making decisions will be more factual, and the bosses will now be more of strategists who run AI-enhanced operations than as actual supervisors (Charlotte et al., 2024). All in all, AI is not merely transforming the way businesses conduct their affairs; it is altering the very nature of their design, staffing, and management.

Reference

Relyea Charlotte, Maor Dana & Durth, Sandra Jan. (2024). “ Gen AI’s next inflection point: From employee experimentation to organizational transformation.” McKinsey & Company, August 7, 2024.  https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/gen-ais-next-inflection-point-from-employee-experimentation-to-organizational-transformation