About

Arvind Karunakaran is an Assistant Professor at Stanford University in the Department of Management Science and Engineering. He is a core faculty member of the Center for Work, Technology, and Organization (WTO), the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), and a faculty affiliate of the Stanford Institute for Human-centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) and the Digital Economy Lab (DEL). His research examines authority and accountability in the workplace, especially in the context of technological change, with a current focus on human-AI augmentation in the workplace. He specializes in ethnographic and field-based methods, including participant observations and interviews, and combines these with comparative-historical analysis of primary archival data and quantitative/computational analysis of large textual datasets. His work has been published in leading journals and recognized with awards from prominent professional associations.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Public relations
• Marketing
• Business
• Computer Science
• Management
• Psychology
• Process management
• Mechanical engineering
• Economics
• Psychoanalysis
• Knowledge management
• Engineering
• Aesthetics
• Law
• Art

Selected publications

• Expert Authority and the Public Sphere: Media Intermediaries, Professional Norm Violation, and the Market for Expertise

  2025-11-22 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen accessSenior author

  We examine the social processes that shape the market for expertise in the public sphere. Specifically, we develop a model of expert amplification to examine the role of professional norms and media intermediaries in skewing the selection and representation of experts to the public. Our model of expert amplification unpacks three interrelated processes: anticipatory selecting-out, a process where experts opt out of public discourse due to the anticipated penalties for professional norm violation; selective promotion, a process where supply-side intermediaries such as press officers, talent agents, public relations, and other communications specialists act to market a subset of experts to the media; and preferential selection, a process where demand-side intermediaries (e.g., media organizations) decide which subset of experts should be invited to their platform to discuss topics that are of interest and relevance to the public. Together, we examine how these processes amplify a certain demographic subset of experts over others in a cumulative manner and what the consequences are for the selection and representation of experts to the public and to the legitimacy of expert authority, more generally.

  PublisherDOI

• Artificial Intelligence at Work: An Integrative Perspective on the Impact of AI on Workplace Inequality

  Academy of Management Annals · 2025-06-25 · 19 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• AI Hasn't Fixed Teamwork, But It Shifted Collaborative Culture: A Longitudinal Study in a Project-Based Software Development Organization (2023-2025)

  ArXiv.org · 2025-09-13

  preprintOpen access

  When AI entered the workplace, many believed it could reshape teamwork as profoundly as it boosted individual productivity. Would AI finally ease the longstanding challenges of team collaboration? Our findings suggested a more complicated reality. We conducted a longitudinal two-wave interview study (2023-2025) with members (N=15) of a project-based software development organization to examine the expectations and use of AI in teamwork. In early 2023, just after the release of ChatGPT, participants envisioned AI as an intelligent coordinator that could align projects, track progress, and ease interpersonal frictions. By 2025, however, AI was used mainly to accelerate individual tasks such as coding, writing, and documentation, leaving persistent collaboration issues of performance accountability and fragile communication unresolved. Yet AI reshaped collaborative culture: efficiency became a norm, transparency and responsible use became markers of professionalism, and AI was increasingly accepted as part of teamwork.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Revisiting Exploration and Exploitation: Temporal structuring for innovation at work

  Organization Theory · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Classical views on organizing for innovation suggest that exploration and exploitation can be balanced in ambidextrous organizations by first separating and then integrating the two. In this paper, we argue that exploration and exploitation can be intertwined to foster ongoing, distributed innovation throughout an organization. To develop this argument, we draw on literature from design, inspired by Herbert Simon, and from narratives, inspired by Paul Ricœur, to expand upon classical organizational views rooted in a representational perspective. From the design literature, we theorize the role of Kairos, or the opportune moment. From narrative theory, we theorize the role of Aion, a circular notion of time. These two concepts of time complement Chronos, a linear notion of time around which organizations have traditionally been structured. Our core thesis is that actors’ ability to simultaneously engage in exploration and exploitation requires the structuring of all three notions of time. We then discuss the organizational implications of this thesis for innovation at work.

  PublisherDOI

• The GenAI Wall Effect: Examining the Limits to Horizontal Expertise Transfer Between Occupational Insiders and Outsiders

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Eliciting Domain Expertise Without Formal Authority: The Case of AI Developers and Domain Experts

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  articleSenior author

  When and how are professionals able (or unable) to elicit expertise from domain experts over whom they have no formal authority? We examine this research question by drawing on four years of qualitative field work, comparing two AI development projects —involving one successful and one unsuccessful attempt to elicit domain expertise—within a large multinational fashion company. We unpack the interplay between task and organizational structures in enabling (or constraining) the effectiveness of AI developers in eliciting domain expertise. In particular, we show that in situations that are characterized by jurisdictional clarity (versus ambiguity), task centrality (versus peripherality), and task enactment homogeneity (versus heterogeneity), AI developers were more effective in accessing domain experts and eliciting their expertise. Building on these findings, we develop a model outlining how the interplay between task and organizational structure shapes both the legibility of domain experts as well as the concentrated nature of domain expertise, and its consequences for the effective (or ineffective) elicitation of domain expertise.

  PublisherDOI

• Suits and Lab Coats: Processes of Sanctification and its Impact on Cross-Occupational Coordination

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  In this ethnography of a “deep tech” venture, we observed high-status professionals micromanaging and seeking authority over “non-core” tasks. This contrasts with the predictions of prior research that higher-status professionals would hive-off such non-core tasks to lower-status professionals. Through the study, we develop a process model of sanctification that explains this seemingly inconsistent finding. The process of sanctification shapes high-status professionals to seek authority over some impure tasks to “sanctify” them, ensuring they are executed in line with professional interests. To explain sanctification, we introduce the idea of sacred objects using the literature on “the sacred and the profane” in markets and organizations from economic sociology. Sacred objects are conceptual objects with sufficient professional significance to create a clash between the ‘cosmopolitan’ values of the profession and the ‘local’ goals of the firm. Finally, we discuss theoretical and practical implications of sanctification on cross-occupational coordination and the accomplishment of organizational goals.

  PublisherDOI

• Expert Authority and the Public Sphere: Media Intermediaries, Professional Norm Violation, and the Market for Expertise

  2025-02-05

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  We examine the social processes that shape the market for expertise in the public sphere. Specifically, we develop a model of expert amplification to examine the role of professional norms and media intermediaries in skewing the selection and representation of experts to the public. Our model of expert amplification unpacks three interrelated processes: anticipatory selecting-out, a process where experts opt out of public discourse due to the anticipated penalties for professional norm violation; selective promotion, a process where supply-side intermediaries such as press officers, talent agents, public relations and other communications specialists, market a subset of experts to the media; and preferential selection, a process where demand-side intermediaries (e.g., media organizations) decide which subset of experts should be invited to their platform to discuss topics that are of interest and relevance to the public. Together, we examine how these processes amplify a certain demographic subset of experts over others in a cumulative manner and what the consequences are for the selection and representation of experts to the public, and to the legitimacy of expert authority, more generally

  PublisherDOI

• Artificial Intelligence at Work: An Integrative Perspective on the Impact of AI on Workplace Inequality

  2025-06-27 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The nexus between technology and workplace inequality has long been a focal point of scholarly discourse, now heightened by the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI). Our review moves beyond dystopian/utopian views of AI by identifying four perspectives— normative, cognitive, structural, and relational— espoused by scholars examining the impact of AI on workplace inequality. Our review surfaces the respective strengths, limitations, and underlying assumptions of these perspectives and highlights how each perspective speaks to a particular facet of workplace inequality, either encoded, evaluative, wage, or relational inequality. A key insight from our review is that integrating these four perspectives would enable a stronger understanding of how, when, and in what direction AI can impact workplace inequality. Toward that end, we provide an integrative framework that espouses a “lifecycle approach” to examine AI technology development, deployment, and use as an ongoing, iterative process, as opposed to studying them in isolation. Our framework foregrounds the role of normative ideologies, materiality, cognitive frames, and organizational structures/processes that together impact workplace inequality in the wake of AI. Our integrative review seeks to equip and motivate management and organizational scholars to examine the lifecycle of AI and its multifaceted impact on workplace inequality.

  PublisherDOI

• GenAI and the Future of Work: Ethics, Reskilling, and Research Methodologies in the Age of GenAI

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  articleSenior author

  As generative AI transforms organizations, leaders and scholars face critical challenges in managing workplace transformation, ensuring ethical AI adoption, and maintaining research rigor. This panel symposium brings together leading experts to share insights from cutting-edge research on how organizations navigate these challenges. Through ethnographic studies of AI adoption in professional services, surveys of AI startups, and methodological innovations in AI-assisted research, our panelists offer fresh perspectives on balancing innovation with responsible development. Join us for a dynamic discussion that bridges theory and practice, offering valuable insights for scholars interested in work transformation, AI ethics, and the future of human-AI collaboration in organizations.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Sandeep Purao

  Bentley University

  9 shared

• Raghu Garud

  9 shared

• Joey van Angeren

  Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

  8 shared

• Hatim A. Rahman

  8 shared

• Beth A. Bechky

  University of California, Davis

  5 shared

• Lindsey Cameron

  University of Pennsylvania

  5 shared

• Brian H. Cameron

  5 shared

• Ingrid Erickson

  Syracuse University

  3 shared

Awards & honors

• 2026 Western Academy of Management Ascendant Scholar
• 2026 Thinkers50 Radar