The Initiative on the Future of Work

The Initiative on the Future of Work at the House of Innovation explores how AI, digital tools, and new ways of organizing work are reshaping professional life – from judgment and responsibility to resilience, collaboration, and the design of tomorrow’s workplaces.

About the initiative

The future of work is not only about automation. It is also about how people make decisions, how organizations adapt, and how trust, expertise, and responsibility are redistributed when technology changes the workplace.

The Initiative on the Future of Work at the Stockholm School of Economics examines how artificial intelligence, digital technologies, and organizational change are transforming work, decision-making, and professional life.

Led by Professor Stefan Haefliger at the House of Innovation, the initiative brings together research on digital innovation, organization theory, resilience, regulation, and human-machine interaction. The initiative explores how organizations adapt to technological change and how professionals navigate increasingly complex digital environments.

Meet our researchers

Research areas

The research focuses particularly on the changing relationship between human judgment and technology. As artificial intelligence systems become integrated into professional work, organizations face new questions about responsibility, coordination, expertise, and trust.

Current research areas include:

  • Artificial intelligence and professional services.
  • Human-machine interaction in organizations.
  • Organizational adaptation and digital transformation.
  • Regulation and governance of emerging technologies.
  • Digital resilience and organizational change.
  • The social and ethical implications of algorithmic systems.

The initiative combines academic research with engagement across industry, policymaking, and international organizations. Its work contributes to ongoing discussions about how organizations and societies can adapt responsibly to technological change.

What is Digital Resilience?

When a major disruption hits, organizations often discover that their carefully stockpiled tools, platforms, and contingency plans are suddenly unworkable. Recovery depends on how people connect, improvise, and create new ways of working together.

 

Resources become valuable through the relationships, routines, and practices that allow people to use them effectively under changing conditions.

 

This is the core insight from longitudinal research by Professor Stefan Haefliger and the House of Innovation at the Stockholm School of Economics, which studied professionals navigating multiple crises over more than three years.

 

The findings challenge the conventional assumption that resilience can be achieved through sufficient preparation. Instead, resilience develops through the ways people connect, repurpose available tools, and rebuild working routines under pressure.