Dr Najam Ul Zia

Drawing upon insights from the trust literature, we conducted two empirical surveys with the front-line employees of firms in Pakistan investigating the factors influencing cognitive trust in artificial intelligence (AI). Study1 consisted of 46 in-depth interviews aimed at exploring factors influencing cognitive trust. Based on the findings of Study 1, we developed a framework to enhance employees’ cognitive trust in AI. We then conducted a quantitative survey (study 2) with 314 employees to validate the proposed model. The findings suggest that AI features positively influence the cognitive trust of employees, while work routine disruptions have negative impact on cognitive trust in AI. The effectiveness of data governance was also found to facilitate employees' trust in data governance and subsequently, employees' cognitive trust in AI. We contribute to the technology trust literature, especial in developing economics. We discuss the implications of our findings for both research and practice.

Previous research has proposed different determinants of the success and failure of technological innovation in industrial networks. However, following the recent COVID-19 pandemic crisis, distributors have been seeking to become more agile in identifying and transforming business processes to avoid failures. Although industrial practitioners have been broadly motivated to understand the effects of pandemics on business failure, the contingency factors that affect organizations in their responses to such sudden exogenous shocks remain unclear. Inspired by a burgeoning academic interest in viewing the COVID-19 pandemic as a digital accelerator, this paper examines how B2B distribution firms have been avoiding business failure by using their dynamic capabilities (DCs) in response to the sudden exogenous shocks caused by the pandemic. Based on data drawn from interviews conducted with a sample of B2B distribution firms, we argue that capitalizing on digital DCs—digital sensing (i.e., digital mindset crafting and digital scenario planning), digital seizing (i.e., engaging in strategic agility and balancing a digital portfolio), and digital transformation (i.e., navigating the innovation ecosystem, redesigning the internal structure, and improving digital maturity), —helps to prevent business failure during a pandemic.