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Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
Published in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 4/2023

19-08-2022 | Original Empirical Research

Practice co-evolution: Collaboratively embedding artificial intelligence in retail practices

Authors: Francesca Bonetti, Matteo Montecchi, Kirk Plangger, Hope Jensen Schau

Published in: Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science | Issue 4/2023

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Abstract

Many retailers invest in artificial intelligence (AI) to improve operational efficiency or enhance customer experience. However, AI often disrupts employees’ ways of working causing them to resist change, thus threatening the successful embedding and sustained usage of the technology. Using a longitudinal, multi-site ethnographic approach combining 74 stakeholder interviews and 14 on-site retail observations over a 5-year period, this article examines how employees’ practices change when retailers invest in AI. Practice co-evolution is identified as the process that undergirds successful AI integration and enables retail employees’ sustained usage of AI. Unlike product or practice diffusion, which may be organic or fortuitous, practice co-evolution is an orchestrated, collaborative process in which a practice is co-envisioned, co-adapted, and co-(re)aligned. To be sustained, practice co-evolution must be recursive and enabled via intentional knowledge transfers. This empirically-derived recursive phasic model provides a roadmap for successful retail AI embedding, and fruitful future research avenues.
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Metadata
Title
Practice co-evolution: Collaboratively embedding artificial intelligence in retail practices
Authors
Francesca Bonetti
Matteo Montecchi
Kirk Plangger
Hope Jensen Schau
Publication date
19-08-2022
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science / Issue 4/2023
Print ISSN: 0092-0703
Electronic ISSN: 1552-7824
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-022-00896-1

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