Events

Prof. Nan Jia
Dean’s Associate Professor in Business Administration
Associate Professor of Strategic Management
Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California

One in five employees at companies in the United States manages others. Effective management boosts workplace productivity and enhances employee well-being, but modern managers are increasingly overwhelmed by the growing organizational demands for various managerial skills. Artificial intelligence (AI) can provide valuable assistance, especially in analyzing workplace data to assess employee performance and to generate feedback for employees, a traditional managerial responsibility. Our randomized field experiment reveals two significant ways AI can enhance managerial effectiveness in employee training. First, we found that employees receiving AI-generated feedback via managers performed better than those trained solely by managers. This improvement was attributed to the superior quality of AI feedback. Second, the success of AI augmentation varied with managers’ leadership styles. Employees with managers demonstrating a transformational leadership style, characterized by strong interpersonal relationships, responded better to AI-assisted training. This leadership style led employees to value and adopt AI feedback more fully. Furthermore, our qualitative analysis indicated that the impact of managerial relationships only became significant when employees were uncertain about the feedback’s quality. Employees trained with AI and transformational leaders also reported a more positive workplace attitude. Our findings suggest that AI, when integrated with effective leadership, can not only boost productivity but also enhance employee well-being.