My research examines what happens inside organizations when new technologies are adopted. I focus on skill transformation, human expertise, and the managerial practices that determine whether technological change strengthens or erodes human capability.
Responsible Management and AI
Current AI-and-work research maps task exposure and automation risk at the macro level. But it tells us little about what happens inside organizations once AI is adopted: how learning trajectories are compressed, how judgment is displaced, and how experiential knowledge is marginalized. My current work argues that responsible AI is not enough. Organizations need responsible management practices that attend to learning, judgment, and worker participation as AI transforms work.
Skills Emergence and Industry 5.0
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in ten European firms (automotive, luxury manufacturing, precision engineering, craft production), I study how new skills develop through human-technology interaction. Our research in the Up-Skill Horizon Europe project shows that the most consequential skills are not those anticipated through workforce planning. They emerge through situated practice as workers engage with technologies, improvise solutions, and develop hybrid forms of expertise. This finding challenges linear models of skills planning and has direct implications for how organizations manage AI adoption.
Hybrid Collaboration and Meetings
My doctoral work investigated how co-located and remote participants coordinate in hybrid meetings, and how technology design shapes inclusion and participation. This research, conducted with the support of a Microsoft
Research PhD Scholarship, resulted in the David B. Martin Best Paper Award at ECSCW 2021 for our paper on meeting-centered design.
Craft Work and Technology
I study how artisanal and craft knowledge interacts with digital tools, automation, and new production technologies. This work reveals how tacit, embodied expertise, often invisible to formal competency frameworks, plays a critical role in organizational capability.
Methodological Approach
I am a qualitative and ethnographic researcher. My work is grounded in sustained fieldwork inside organizations, combining observation, interviews, and co-design methods. I draw on traditions in organization studies, science and technology studies (STS), and human-computer interaction (HCI).
Banu Saatçi 