The Autonomy Tussle: AI Technology and Employee Job Crafting Responses

In this qualitative study of 27 bank employees, we investigated how learning algorithms affected their working conditions, their autonomy and the meaning of their work. We show that employees responded to the AI-induced changes through job crafting behaviours (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Employees reshaped their task and relationship boundaries, and cognitively reframed their jobs, to maintain their autonomy, their desired social relationships and the meaning of their work. By considering the effects of learning algorithms on the employees’ work experience from their perspective, we provide a novel application of job crafting theory. Employees’ concerted response across the three job crafting dimensions underlines the importance of synergy across job crafting dimensions if they are to be successful in altering employees’ experience of work and enhancing the human value of their services.