The Automation of Management and Business Science

Abstract

Many of the key tasks in the research process for the physical sciences have been successfully automated, resulting in prototype ‘automated scientists’ that have been effective in producing and reporting original research. The purpose of this paper is to explore 1) the possibility of automating the key tasks in the scientific research process for the management and business sciences, 2) where our technology currently stands with respect to automating these processes, and 3) the implications and resulting research questions of a future of automated, or at least partially-automated, management and business science. We synthesize reports from the mass media, academic literature, and the results of a Delphi study to provide a preview of the potential for automating technologies to affect the work of business researchers. The results indicate that many current technologies can be applied to further automate researchers’ tasks, and that scientists in automation and artificial intelligence are actively working to do so. We then discuss the implications of an increasingly automated science, and present questions which should advance discourse among researchers in the management and business sciences.