About the lecture
Digital twins are AI-enabled virtual representations of physical systems that maintain symbiotic information links with the systems they represent. Studies show they can successfully improve productive outcomes in manufacturing and operations across different contexts, which has led to the development of human-related systems to achieve similar benefits.
This lecture asks what happens when the logic of physical digital twins is extended from machines and processes to humans in organizational contexts. Focusing on B2B sales, it conceptualizes the salesperson digital twin (SDT) as a new form of human digital twin and examines how it differs from physical digital twins.
It shows that, unlike physical digital twins, SDTs are less faithful replicas and instead constitute incomplete, ambiguous, and contested sets of digital traces and managerial assumptions. This difference challenges authority, discretion, and epistemic rights that SDTs evoke, while also reshaping how sales work is organized, how agency is distributed, and how knowledge is accumulated.
Drawing on an abductive research process involving interviews with technology providers and sales practitioners, the lecture identifies limitations, tensions, and risks that arise when SDTs are implemented in organizational settings.
The lecture concludes by presenting a research agenda aimed at promoting trust and the responsible use of AI-based technologies, taking privacy into account, in order to enable productive human–AI collaboration in organizational contexts.
About the speaker
Jagdip Singh is the AT&T Professor of Marketing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. His research focuses on designing, managing, and sustaining strong customer connections at the frontlines of organizations.
He is the co-founder of the interdisciplinary Organizational Frontlines Research (OFR) initiative, which hosts an annual symposium in conjunction with the American Marketing Association’s Winter Educator Meetings.
Professor Singh has received Case Western Reserve University’s John S. Diekhoff Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and the Excellence in Doctoral Teaching and Mentoring Award in both 2007 and 2017. His research contributions have earned him the Weatherhead School of Management’s Research Recognition Award in 1997 and 2018, as well as the University’s Faculty Distinguished Research Award in 2019, the highest honor for enduring and impactful research. In 2019, he also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Marketing Association’s SIG-Sales. Additionally, he has received multiple Excellence in Reviewing Awards from leading journals, including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Retailing, and Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management.
The lecture will take place from 13:00 to 14:15 in the Faculty Council Hall of the Faculty of Organization and Informatics, and will be delivered by Professor Jagdip Singh, an internationally recognized and award-winning expert. The lecture will be held in English.
