Paper Number
ECIS2026-2637
Paper Type
CRP
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly participates in strategic decision-making, challenging leadership theories that assume human agency at the top of organizations. Yet research on AI-enabled decision-making and upper echelons theory (UET) has largely evolved in parallel. We conduct a concept-centric literature review integrating management and information systems (IS) research to examine how AI affects executive decision-making. Our analysis identifies three mechanisms through which AI reconfigures UET: cognition reconfiguration through the mediation of information and attention, evaluation reconfiguration through the partial substitution of human judgment with algorithmic decision logic, and discretion reconfiguration through the delegation and embedding of decision authority. AI expands analytical capacity while introducing new constraints, shapes how alternatives are evaluated, and redistributes managerial discretion. We introduce the concept of hybrid upper echelons to explain how human and algorithmic actors jointly influence strategic outcomes, showing that executive influence increasingly shifts from making decisions to configuring and governing AI-enabled decision processes.
Recommended Citation
Mehler, Alisa; Hein, Andreas; and Krcmar, Helmut, "Hybrid Upper Echelons: A Theorizing Review On AI In Executive Decision-Making" (2026). ECIS 2026 Proceedings. 21.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2026/litrev/litrev/21
Hybrid Upper Echelons: A Theorizing Review On AI In Executive Decision-Making
Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly participates in strategic decision-making, challenging leadership theories that assume human agency at the top of organizations. Yet research on AI-enabled decision-making and upper echelons theory (UET) has largely evolved in parallel. We conduct a concept-centric literature review integrating management and information systems (IS) research to examine how AI affects executive decision-making. Our analysis identifies three mechanisms through which AI reconfigures UET: cognition reconfiguration through the mediation of information and attention, evaluation reconfiguration through the partial substitution of human judgment with algorithmic decision logic, and discretion reconfiguration through the delegation and embedding of decision authority. AI expands analytical capacity while introducing new constraints, shapes how alternatives are evaluated, and redistributes managerial discretion. We introduce the concept of hybrid upper echelons to explain how human and algorithmic actors jointly influence strategic outcomes, showing that executive influence increasingly shifts from making decisions to configuring and governing AI-enabled decision processes.
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