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Cited by 174Ethics and Social Impacts of AIEthics in Business and EducationImpact of AI and Big Data on Business and Society

Ethical Management of Artificial Intelligence

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Brendel, Alfred Benedikt, Mirbabaie, Milad, Lembcke, Tim-Benjamin, Hofeditz, Lennart·2021·Sustainability
DOI 10.3390/su13041974
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Abstract

With artificial intelligence (AI) becoming increasingly capable of handling highly complex tasks, many AI-enabled products and services are granted a higher autonomy of decision-making, potentially exercising diverse influences on individuals and societies. While organizations and researchers have repeatedly shown the blessings of AI for humanity, serious AI-related abuses and incidents have raised pressing ethical concerns. Consequently, researchers from different disciplines widely acknowledge an ethical discourse on AI. However, managers—eager to spark ethical considerations throughout their organizations—receive limited support on how they may establish and manage AI ethics. Although research is concerned with technological-related ethics in organizations, research on the ethical management of AI is limited. Against this background, the goals of this article are to provide a starting point for research on AI-related ethical concerns and to highlight future research opportunities. We propose an ethical management of AI (EMMA) framework, focusing on three perspectives: managerial decision making, ethical considerations, and macro- as well as micro-environmental dimensions. With the EMMA framework, we provide researchers with a starting point to address the managing the ethical aspects of AI.

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  • AI systems become smarter, independent, and take decisions which may create prejudiced or harmful behavior, and managers don't know how to apply ethics in decision-making.

    “AI systems become smarter, independent, and take decision which may create prejudiced or harmful behavior, and managers don't know how to apply ethics in decision-making [13].”

    From Mitigating Bias in Retail AI Hiring Tools: A Human-Centered H-A-I-R-E Governance Framework for Low-Wage Hires (2026) · cites this paper as [13]

    The Introduction and Section 2 describe evolving AI with increasing decision-making autonomy and potentially harmful consequences; Section 3 gives an example of AI disadvantaging job applicants. The Introduction says ethical considerations need to inform managerial decisions and that a fragmented discourse is difficult for some employees to navigate. It does not establish the broader claim that managers do not know how to apply ethics in decision-making. (LLM, conf=0.85)

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Brendel, A. B., Mirbabaie, M., Lembcke, T.-B., & Hofeditz, L.
Affiliations
  • Business Informatics, Especially Intelligent Systems and Services, Technische Universität Dresden, 01169 Dresden, Germany
  • University of Bremen (DE)
  • University of Göttingen (DE)
  • University of Duisburg-Essen (DE)
ORCID
Venue
Sustainability
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2021-02-12
Volume
13
Issue
4
Pages
1974
ISSN
2071-1050 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/su13041974
OpenAlex
W3127883350
Cited by
174
References
7
Citations by year
2026: 30 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 7
FWCI
30.67
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • GoeScholar The Publication Server of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Ethics in Business and Education
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Impact of AI and Big Data on Business and Society
Keywords
AI ethics, management decision-making, organizational ethics

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