Exploring the Use of AI Meeting Assistants in Organisations Through Impression Management Lens

Abstract

In this thesis, I investigate how AI meeting assistant technologies are used and experienced by employees in organisations. Despite their growing adoption, few studies have examined their implications. I have written three research papers to make theoretical contributions to the information systems field. Paper 1 shows that scholars have focused on the design aspects of meeting assisting technologies, overlooking the context within which these tools are used. Paper 2 identifies that designers of meeting assistants underappreciate the significance of meetings for employee identity work and the importance of looking good in alignment with organisational norms and expectations. Paper 3 examines how the use of AI meeting assistants influences employee impression management and its implications. In this thesis, I demonstrate that AI meeting assistants are more than productivity tools. I shed light on how the presence of these tools and their evidence-generating capabilities influence meeting behaviours and conversations, shifting power dynamics towards AI and people with AI outputs. I illuminate how employees get implicated in impression management with unequal opportunities. I show how these tools motivate additional, invisible, impression relevant efforts in and around the individuals who activate them in meetings. These invisible efforts are unaccounted for because designers of these technologies do not sufficiently acknowledge that employees use meetings for identity work, and their efforts are shaped by what they believe their employers value and expect.