Anastasia Sergeeva has been appointed Professor of Work, Technology, and Organization
Anastasia Sergeeva is a researcher at the KIN Center for Digital Innovation and a member of the AI@Work research group at the School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Sergeeva is recognized as the world-class expert on the qualitative scholarship of technology and work. Her core academic contribution is the introduction of an “embedded research paradigm” to the study of technology at work: while many studies investigate technologies, such as AI, through surveys, interviews, laboratory experiments, or critical reflections, Sergeeva's approach emphasizes a commitment to “being there” on the ground in organizations implementing AI over an extended period.
Rooted in cultural anthropological methods, her work demonstrates that only through deep, longitudinal immersion can we achieve a truly grounded understanding of work transformation.
A novel aspect of this paradigm is its focus on technology development as culture itself: while much scholarship on the “future of work” implicitly assumes a “grand force” of digitalization, portraying technology as an inevitable driver of societal progress, her ethnographies uniquely combine a focus on both technology design and its workplace use.
This distinctive approach reveals how engineering design choices, aspirations, and values are inscribed into the technologies that shape our work lives, often at the expense of workers’ situated values.
About
Anastasia holds a PhD in Management from the Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg State University and a Masters in Management from the same school.
Her research interests include technology-mediated organisational change, transformation of professional work and emergence of new forms of organising due to digital technologies.
Her work has been published in journals such as Organization Science, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Inquiry, Human Resource Management Journal and Health Informatics Journal. She serves as Senior Editor at Organization Science.
Anastasia is one of the teachers of our elective course AI@Work.
Read more about her appointment on the website of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.