Expertise and Emerging Technologies: A Working and Organizing Perspective

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

Description:

The accelerated technological developments, particularly in the areas that directly touch on skilled and knowledge work, has rejuvenated social, economic, ethical, and humanistic questions regarding “expertise”. Here, there it is essential for researchers and academics to engage in in-depth, qualitative understanding of expertise and how it is developed, enacted and worked, critically examine the intended and unintended consequences of technologies for how expertise, and creatively contribute to the assumptions, debates, decisions, and actions through their scholarly work. This PhD course aims to engage our future scholars in such a process, providing them with the knowledge, methods, and skills to investigate and contribute to engaged scholarship in this area.

The course focuses on the following themes and questions:

• Deep dive into expertise: past, present and future
• Technologies of expertise: a historical and phenomenological analysis
• Interactions of technologies and expertise: (emerging) configurations of technology and experts at work
• Developing expertise in relation to emerging technologies (novel expertise, destruction of expertise, and new modes of learning and knowing)
• Organizing expertise through emerging technologies: within and across organizations (coordination, market of expertise, control, and jurisdiction)

Learning objectives:

• Understanding how expertise is developed, exercises, and organized through classic academic theories;
• Developing a critical, informed understanding of the broader scheme of technological developments (including but not limited to artificial intelligence, robotics, ...) in relation to the development, exercising, and organizing expertise.
• Gaining experience on how to investigate the impacts of technologies on development, enactment and organization of expertise as a form of in-depth, engaged scholarship
• Being able to analyze and synthesize their research findings in relation to theoretical debates and develop insights for understanding and practice.

Prerequisites:

No formal prerequisite, but preferably a basic familiarity with qualitative research methods

Program:

Online session: (September 2026).

12-15: Welcome and introduction to course

Preliminary program in-person session (September 2026):

First day:

Theoretical background:

9-12: Lecture (including break): Organizational and sociological foundations of the study of expertise and technology (Mohammad and Kasper together)

Studying and analyzing expertise:

12.45-14.45: A focus on forms of expertise

Interactional, contributory and relational dimensions of expertise (Ruthanne Huising, Davide Nicolini)

15.00-17: Plenary session where student introduce own projects

Second day

Morning session (theoretical focus)

9-10.30: The micro-dynamics of expertise - materiality, sociality (Mohammad)

10.30-12: The macro-dynamics of expertise (Kasper)

Afternoon session (analysis focus)

12-13: Lunch

13-15: Introducing live case - AI in radiology (virtual)15.30-18: Working with live case in groups (Davide Nicolini)

Third day:

Morning session

9-10.30: Organizational perspectives on expertise and technological change - authority, roles, and coordination (Pedro Monteiro)

10.30-12: Organizing expertise through emerging technologies (Kasper, Mohammad)

Afternoon session

13-15: Student presentations and feedback on analytical perspectives on expertise (one hour for each project)

15-16: Wrapping up the course

Online sessions (October 2026):

- 9-16: Student presentations and feedback on analytical perspectives on expertise (one hour for each project) (Kasper, Mohammad, Davide)

Final session – online (November 2026):

9-10: Lecture (Kasper)

10-12: Student presentations and feedback on mini-ethnographic project

12-13: Wrapping up course

Description of paper requirements:

The paper must be based on the student’s own work, and must critically engage with the literature. A draft version of the paper will be presented at the online sessions (day 4 and 5), and a final version will be submitted before the final session and is required to pass the course.

Organizer: Kasper Trolle Elmholdt, Associate Professor, Aalborg University

Lecturers: Kasper Trolle Elmholdt, Associate Professor, Dr. Mohammad H. Rezazade Mehrizi, Associate Professor

ECTS: 5

Dates: TBA

Place: TBA

City:  Copenhagen

Number of seats: 25

Deadline: TBA

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.

Mandatory literature:

An approx, 300 pages compendium will be created based on extracts from books below:

• Abbott, Andrew. 2014. The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. University of Chicago Press.
• Barley, S. R. (2020). Work and technological change. Oxford University Press, USA.
• 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.
• Eyal, G., & Medvetz, T. (2023). The Oxford Handbook of Expertise and Democratic Politics. Oxford University Press.Eyal, G. (2019). The crisis of expertise. John Wiley & Sons
  •  Pasquale, F. A. (2023). Battle of the Experts: The Strange Career of Meta-Expertise. In The Oxford Handbook of Expertise, edited by Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz.
  • Huising, R. (2023). Professional Authority in The Oxford Handbook of Expertise, edited by Gil Eyal and Thomas Medvetz.
• Heimstädt, M., Koljonen, T., & Elmholdt, K. T. (2023). Expertise in management research: A review and agenda for future research. The Academy of Management Annals.
• Pakarinen, P., & Huising, R. (2023). Relational Expertise: What Machines Can't Know. Journal of Management Studies.
• Treem, J. W., & Leonardi, P. M. (Eds.). (2016). Expertise, communication, and organizing. Oxford University Press.

Suggested literature:

• Susskind, Richard, and Daniel Susskind. 2015. The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts. Oxford University Press, USA.
• Pryma, J. (2022). Technologies of expertise: opioids and pain management’s credibility crisis. American Sociological Review, 87(1), 17-49.
• Sandberg, J., Rouleau, L., Langley, A., & Tsoukas, H. (Eds.). (2017). Skillful performance: Enacting capabilities, knowledge, competence, and expertise in organizations (Vol. 7). Oxford University Press.