Matthew E Gladden

Posthuman Management Matthew E Gladden

What are the best practices for leading a workforce in which human employees have merged cognitively and physically with electronic information systems and work alongside social robots, artificial life-forms, and self-aware networks that are 'colleagues' rather than simply 'tools'? How does one manage organizational structures that span actual and virtual worlds? How are the forces of technological posthumanization transforming the theory and practice of management? This volume explores the reality that an organization's workers, managers, customers, and other stakeholders increasingly comprise a complex network of human agents, artificial agents, and hybrid human-synthetic entities. The book's first part develops the theoretical foundations of an emerging 'organizational posthumanism' and presents frameworks for understanding and managing the evolving workplace relationship between human and synthetic beings. Subsequent chapters investigate a diverse range of management topics in light of this framework.