Virtual Brown Bag: Prof. Emmanuelle Vaast

The Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation of Prof. Georg von Krogh invites you to the VIRTUAL brownbag seminar with:

Professor Emmanuelle Vaast
Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University

Date: Wednesday 14th April 2021: 14:00-16:00 (Zurich time)
Zoom: external page https://ethz.zoom.us/j/2340354518

Presentation title: When digital technologies enable and threaten occupational identity: The delicate balancing act of data scientists

Abstract: Occupations are increasingly embedded with and affected by digital technologies. These technologies both enable and threaten occupational identity and create two important tensions: they make the persistence of an occupation possible while also potentially rendering it obsolete; and, they bring about both similarity and distinctiveness of an occupation with regards to other occupations. Based on the critical case study of an online community dedicated to data science, we investigate longitudinally how data scientists address the two tensions of occupational identity associated with digital technologies and reach transient syntheses in terms of “optimal distinctiveness” and “persistent extinction.” We propose that identity work associated with digital technologies follows a composite life-cycle and dialectical process. We explain that people constantly need to adjust and redefine their occupational identity, i.e. how they define who they are and what they do. We contribute to scholarship on digital technologies and identity work by illuminating how people deal in an ongoing manner with digital technologies that simultaneously enable and threaten their occupational identity.



About the speaker
Emmanuelle Vaast is Professor of Information Systems at the Desautels Faculty of Management of McGill University. Her research examines how social practices and identities emerge and change with the implementation and use of new technologies. She studies how social and societal changes unfold with the development and use of digital technologies. Her research has been published, among others, at MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Organization Science, Academy of Management Annals, and Organization Studies. Emmanuelle is a Past Division Chair of the Organizational Communication and Information Systems (OCIS) division of the Academy of Management. She has served as Senior Editor at Information Systems Research.

We look forward to welcoming you!

Kind regards,
The Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation