TIDE

TIDE - navigating demands and expectations

Introduction

The TIDE project focuses on the profound transformation that AI brings for leaders, organizations, and their relationships with the wider society. Demands and expectations from markets, legislators, and other stakeholders are increasing regarding how technologies such as AI and blockchain are used. Rapid technological changes, new regulations, and ongoing public debates pose challenges for many companies, and it is often unclear how they actually interpret, manage, and integrate these new technologies in practice. It is this uncertainty that TIDE seeks to explore.

Purpose

TIDE investigates how organizations engage with emerging technologies and navigate this new environment by analyzing the interaction between institutional contexts and organizational agency. The project focuses on three levels:

• Macro level: Regulations, social and political frameworks that shape technological legitimacy.
• Meso level: Industry networks, ecosystems, and professional norms that influence strategic decision-making.
• Micro level: Leadership — how managers interpret and understand changes, how they respond to them, and the individual decisions that drive implementation.

By exploring and connecting these three levels, TIDE develops new knowledge about the drivers, barriers, and conditions for effective and sustainable use of AI and other digital technologies.

Expected results

The project aims to provide tools for understanding how companies manage external demands from, for example, authorities, while maintaining credibility among target groups such as customers, employees, and society at large.

Expected outcomes:

• A process model (IDAM) explaining different pathways for AI adoption
• Comparative insights from AI and blockchain case studies
• Guidelines on how symbolic initiatives can be linked to real organizational change

The results will strengthen both research and practice by showing how companies can integrate ethical, strategic, and technological perspectives in their digital transformation.

TIDE stands for Technology, Institutional Dynamics & Environments.

TIDE stands for Technology, Institutional Dynamics & Environments

The project is carried out within the framework of AFAIR and is funded by the KK Foundation and Jönköping University.

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