The Arrival of AI in the Company Is Less of a Scare for White Collars

RESEARCH SHOWS THAT, DESPITE DIFFERENCES IN PERCEPTION, EMPLOYEES AND MANAGERS ARE STILL LESS WORRIED ABOUT LOSING THEIR JOBS THAN BLUE COLLARS. THIS IS PARTICULARLY TRUE IF THEY WORK IN FAMILY COMPANIES

by Emanuele Borgonovo and Alberto Grando, Full Professor at the Department of Decision Sciences and Full Professor at the Department of Management and Technology

Artificial intelligence is creating a revolution in the way we and our companies work. Industrial investment in AI on the rise, with companies hoping to use it to gain competitive advantage. More than one authoritative source highlights the risk that artificial intelligence could lead robots to replace people in repetitive and routine jobs. The risk of losing your job, especially when you are at an advanced stage of your career, is certainly among the most feared socially. In our work with Chiarini and Venturini, we address the issue of the perception of job loss among employees working in qualified positions, so-called white collars, in Italian manufacturing companies. This work differs from previous studies which have mainly focused on perception of the risk of losing one's job among so-called blue-collar workers. The research question also concerned what factors may amplify or decrease the perception of AI risk, such as age, department, position in the company’s organizational chart and size of the company. Among the variables, "department" was associated to the type of work and the degree of repetitiveness of the task performed.
Quantitative analysis was accompanied by qualitative analysis through the collection of comments from respondents to a questionnaire. These were divided into two groups: optimists, i.e. those who underestimate AI risk, and pessimists, i.e. those who overestimate it.
In light of the analysis conducted on the optimistic and pessimistic respondents, three interpretative perspectives were identified that can be associated with the results of quantitative analysis. The first refers to the trust that employees place in the company and its top management (summarized in “Sense of trust”), something that occurs when the company has a history of resilience that has managed to unite the fate of the company and that of its workers, as well as engages in communication and transparency regarding the main choices made by the organization.

The second is linked to family-type governance systems (summarized in “Family-run business”), mainly found in small and medium-sized companies, in which values and personnel management methods expressed through deep relationships that last over time seem to strengthen the sense of belonging of employees, giving greater assurance regarding continuity and stability of employment. The third refers instead to the content of the specific job of the respondent (summarized in “Job content richness”), from which it emerges that carrying out non-repetitive tasks, often based on attributes of creativity and strong relationships with other company stakeholders, mitigates the perception of risk, while on the contrary, it is strengthened if the person performs functions or processes in which routine and repetitiveness prevail.

What emerges from the study, in its quantitative and qualitative components, testifies to the non-uniqueness of perception regarding the advent of Industry 4.0 technologies in manufacturing companies and, in particular, the effect of investments in AI.
Compared to the extensive literature on the impact of technology on wage workers, salaried employees and managers seem less concerned about the threat posed by automation and AI in their companies. However, the perception of the risk of losing one's job differs significantly depending on the functions and activities performed, their content, the size of the company, and the nature of the environment established in the company organization. Particularly notable is that a lower perception of risk prevails in family-owned companies, where the employment relation is perceived as a relationship of mutual trust, with a human component that goes beyond the mere carrying out of a series of tasks.