Shared Futures: An Exploration of the Collaborative Potential of Intelligent Machines and Human Ingenuity in Cocreating Value

Abstract

This chapter reports on the exploratory study that aimed at better understanding the conditions under which the combined capabilities of intelligent technologies and human ingenuity could be harnessed to create new efficiencies. The study was conducted within a university setting as universities should model how future societies ought to look like and drive societal change. As the new digital society 5.0 takes shape, the time has come to critically probe one aspect of society 5.0, the leveraging of human-machine collaborations to generate unique ideas and convert them into tangible results. The sequential mixed methods ’ approach together with a sociocultural lens was used to investigate the ideal university conditions that could foster human-machine collaborations in value cocreation. Nineteen Senior Scandinavian and South African managers were interviewed to elicit their views on how human-machine collaborations could be harnessed to cocreate value within complex university settings. Entrenched cultures, policies, systems, and multiple stakeholder interests which complex into rules and routines mostly define university mores. These university mores are often impervious to rapid newness and radical change. Fifteen advanced undergraduates at one South African university also participated in a quasi-experimentation that investigated team formation and team development within the context of human-machine collaborations.