I am full professor of Communication and Management at the Norwegian Business School (BI). Over the last five years, we have been building an interdisciplinary research group at the intersection of new media, digital technologies and society (the Nordic Centre for Internet and Society). Our research focuses on social issues in the digital environment and computer-mediated communication, addressing issues like labour and industrial relations, organizational social responsibility, and research ethics.

Our ambition is to advance knowledge and help improve practices in areas like perception and moral emotions (in relation to, for instance, fairness and alienation) in digital environments, the search for meaning in digital labour markets, and the endeavour to make artificial intelligence more inclusive and accountable to a broad range of stakeholders.

I am excited about the impulses AFINO may bring to business schools such as mine. Indeed, AFINO may educate and showcase that business is not only about conducting business, but also about understanding good business. In order to understand the changes and the implications brought to business contexts by digital technologies, we need to understand people – their behaviours, their desires, how they are embedded in organisations and in culture, and what they perceive as a good, social contract with technology.

Within AFINO we see it as our mission to research technology, not just from a business model perspective, but also as embedded in society and enabled through stakeholder engagement.