Employees’ Perceptions of AI Technology Adoption in Swedish Tech Organizations

Sammanfattning

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an emerging technology that brings profound transformation in key business operations. Knowing the promising value and economic contributions of AI technology in Sweden, it is worthwhile to explore AI adoption in Swedish tech organizations as the forefront of this innovation. Successful AI adoption needs not only technical but also human factors, and this needs to be prepared from the pre-adoption phase. However, employees’ perceptions at the pre-adoption phase of tech organizations remain underexplored. The purpose of the study is to understand employees’ perceptions of AI adoption at the pre-adoption phase in Swedish tech organizations. The overarching questions of this study are: How do employees at the pre-adoption phase perceive the use of AI technologies in tech organizations? What are the challenges and key factors for ethical AI adoption in tech organizations? Qualitative research through semi-structured interviews with eight professionals was conducted, guided by UTAUT theory. Employees generally are positive, optimistic, and curious and perceive the use of AI to increase their work and organizational performance, but at the same time have concerns over ethics, trust, and risks. The study also found technological, cultural, and organizational challenges, which highlight that while tech organizations are positioned to lead AI innovation and economic growth, they are faced with tensions between the need for rapid adoption to retain global competitiveness and talent and the commitment to ethical AI adoption, which reflects the societal values. This shows that tech organizations are at an important phase of AI adoption, with some technologically prepared but faced with regulatory, ethical, and human challenges. Thus, this study presented seven key factors for ethical AI adoption in tech organizations, such as scalable technical resources, supportive organizational culture, AI skill and competence, trustworthy AI systems, ethical data governance and management, clear guidelines and regulations, and strategic business planning. The significance of this study lies in its contributions to knowledge, practical applications, and SDGs in the field of information systems (IS) studies and AI adoption discourse by increasing understanding of the individual/employee aspects within the tech organization at the pre-adoption context and UTAUT explanations. It addresses the gap in the tech organizations’ issues, such as intellectual property (IP), the importance of supportive organizational culture, the type of training that employees need, the influence of national and global narratives in AI adoption and employees’ engagement, the implication of AI adoption pace for talent retention, employees’ transition journeys and inclusivity in implementation, the need to train AI super users in collaboration with external parties, the need for harmonization of international regulatory, and humans to complement AI, which can assist tech organizations and societal stakeholders in ethical AI adoption.