Course detail

Welcome to Expertise and Emerging Technologies: A Working and Organizing Perspective

Course organizers and lecturers  

Dr. Kasper Trolle Elmholdt, Professor, Department of Politics and Society, Center for IT Management, Aalborg University (elm@dps.aau.dk) (Organizer) 

Dr. Mohammad H. Rezazade Mehrizi, Associate Professor, School of Business and Economics, Vrije 

Universiteit Amsterdam, KIN Center For Digital Innovation (m.rezazademehrizi@vu.nl) (Co-organizer) 

Guest lectures for specific sessions 

Dr. Pedro Monteiro, Associate      Professor, Department of Organization, Copenhagen Business School 

Prof. Davide Nicolini, Warwick Business School, visiting professor at BI Norwegian Business School Oslo 

Prof. Harry Collins, Honorary Professor, University College London

Course description

Technological developments, particularly in the areas that directly touch on knowledge work, are raising once again questions on “expertise”. Researchers are thus called to examine how expertise is developed, applied, and organized with particular attention to the intended and unintended consequences of technologies in these processes. This PhD course aims to introduce PhD students to these academic conversations and thus provide them with the insights, methods, and skills to investigate and contribute to scholarship in this area. 

The course focuses on the following topics 

• Scholarly debate on expertise: foundational traditions, current research, and future developments. 
  
• Technologies & expertise: how (emerging) technologies generate novel expertise, disrupt existing ones, and reconfigure learning and knowing. 
  
• Organizing & expertise: understanding the interplay of organizational structure and expertise, authority, coordination among specialists, and the management of experts      

Learning objectives

• Understand how expertise is developed, recognized, and enacted through academic scholarship in organization and management.
  
• Develop a critical understanding of the interplay of expertise and technologies (including but not limited to artificial intelligence and similar digital technologies) 
  
• Gain experience in how to investigate the impacts of technologies on the development, recognition, and enactment of expertise  
  
• Critically analyze the relations between organization and expertise 
  
• Develop scholarly insights on current trends around managing expertise and expert work                            

Program 

The course runs from September to November 2026 and combines online and in-person attendance in Copenhagen at Aalborg University.  We focus on different aspects of expertise in each session, and the sessions will combine a mix of student presentations, lectures, and group work.   

Mandatory literature (preliminary):

• Abbott, A. (1991). ‘The future of professions: Occupation and expertise in the age of organization’. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 8, 17–42.
  
• Baldwin, Carliss. 2025. “EXPRESS: A Theory of Technology and Organizations.” Strategic Organization, https://doi.org/10.1177/14761270251409566
  
• Barley, S. R. (1996). Technicians in the workplace: Ethnographic evidence for bringing work into organizational studies. Administrative science quarterly, 404-441.
  
• Collins, H., & Evans, R. (2019). Rethinking expertise. University of Chicago Press.
  
• Collins, H. (2025). Why artificial intelligence needs sociology of knowledge: parts I and II. AI & society, 40(3), 1249-1263. 
  
• Collins, H., & Evans, R. (2019). Rethinking expertise. University of Chicago press. Chapters Introduction, 1, and 2.
  
• Collins, H. (2018). Artifictional intelligence: against humanity's surrender to computers. John Wiley & Sons.
  
• Eyal, G. (2013). For a sociology of expertise: The social origins of the autism epidemic. American Journal
  
• Heimstädt, M., Koljonen, T., & Elmholdt, K. T. (2024). Expertise in management research: A review and agenda for future research. The Academy of Management Annals.
  
• Hoffman, R. R., Shadbolt, N. R., Burton, A. M., & Klein, G. (1995). Eliciting knowledge from experts: A methodological analysis. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 62(2), 129-158.
  
• Monteiro, P. (2024). Generating, Grading, and Ghosting: How Organizing Experts Shapes Expertise. Journal of Management Studies.
  
• Nicolini, D. (2009). Articulating practice through the interview to the double. Management learning, 40(2), 195-212.      
  
• Nicolini, D., Monteiro, P., Elmholdt,. K.T., & Mehrizi, M.H.R. (forthcoming) Expertise in organizations:  development, recognition, and mobilization. 
  
• Pakarinen, P., & Huising, R. (2023). Relational Expertise: What Machines Can't Know. Journal of Management Studies.
  

Suggested literature (preliminary):

• Beane, M. (2019). Shadow learning: Building robotic surgical skill when approved means fail. Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(1), 87-123.
  
• Bechky, B. A. (2020). Evaluative spillovers from technological change: The effects of “DNA envy” on occupational practices in forensic science. Administrative Science Quarterly, 65(3), 606-643.
  
• Emirbayer, M. (1997). Manifesto for a relational sociology. American journal of sociology, 103(2), 281-317.
  
• Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1980). Verbal reports as data. Psychological review, 87(3), 215.
  
• Faraj, S., Perez-Torrents, J., Mantere, S., & Bhardwaj, A. (2026). A time for monsters: Organizational knowing after large language models. Strategic Organization, 24(2), 343-356.
  
• Faraj, S., Perez-Torrents, J., Mantere, S., & Bhardwaj, A. A time for monsters: Organizational knowing after large language models. Strategic Organization, 14761270251410675.
  
• Huising, R., Elmholdt, K. T., & Mäkinen, E. (2025). Introduction: The Changing Constitution and Ecology of Expertise. Research in the Sociology of Organizations.
  
• Kim, B., Rezazade Mehrizi, M. H., & Bailey, D. E. (2025). Interlacing situated and algorithmic modes of knowledge work: A workplace jurisdiction perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 68(5), 907-938.
  
• Leonardi, P. M., & Leavell, V. (2026). Knowing enough to be dangerous: The problem of “artificial certainty” for expert authority when using AI for decision making and planning. Organization Science, 37(2), 516-543.
  
• Li, X., & Zhou, M. (2026). The Impact of Manipulated Clinical Decision Support Algorithm on Opioid Prescribing Decision. Management Science.
  
• Sergeeva, A. V., Leonardi, P. M., & Faraj, S. (2026). Beyond the tool view of AI: Intelligent technologies and the emergence of new epistemic regimes. Strategic Organization, 24(2), 463-478.
  
• Shadbolt, N. R., & Smart, P. R. (2015). Knowledge Elicitation. In J. R. Wilson & S. Sharples (Eds.), Evaluation of Human Work (4th ed.). CRC Press,  Boca  Raton,  Florida, USA.
  
• The debate between Lucy Suchman and Herbert Simon: Vera, Alonso H., and Herbert A. Simon. 1993. “Situated Action: A Symbolic Interpretation.” Cognitive Science 17 (1): 7–48. And Suchman, Lucy. 1993. “Response to Vera and Simon’s Situated Action: A Symbolic Interpretation.” Cognitive Science 17 (1): 71–75.
  
• Vaughan, D. (1999). The role of the organization in the production of techno-scientific knowledge. Social Studies of Science, 29(6), 913-943.
  
• Walsh, J. P., & Lee, Y. N. (2015). The bureaucratization of science. Research Policy, 44(8), 1584-1600.

ECTS: 5

Place: Aalborg University Copenhagen

             Frederiks Kaj 10B, 1st floor, room "Studio 2"
             2450 Copenhagen South West

Number of seats: 25

Deadline: 4 September 2026

Important information concerning PhD courses:

There is a no-show fee of DKK 3,000 for each course where the student does not show up. Cancellations are accepted no later than 2 weeks before the start of the course. Registered illness is of course an acceptable reason for not showing up on those days. Furthermore, all courses open for registration approximately four months before start of the course. We cannot ensure any seats before the deadline for enrolment, all participants will be informed after the deadline, approximately 3 weeks before the start of the course.

For inquiries regarding registration, cancellation or waiting list, please contact the PhD administration at phdcourses@adm.aau.dk When contacting us please state the course title and course period. Thank you.