Summary
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer limited to automating routine tasks—it increasingly works alongside employees as a collaborative teammate. As a result, leaders are not only supervising human employees but also coordinating work between humans and AI. While this emerging form of management can enhance efficiency and innovation, our research published in the Journal of Management Studies reveals a hidden ethical cost: managing human–AI collaborations can unintentionally foster moral relativism among leaders, thereby increasing the risk of unethical behavior. Recognizing and addressing this ethical risk is essential for building ethically resilient organizations in the age of AI.
Managing Human–AI Collaborations as a New Leadership Reality
Across industries—from finance and healthcare to hospitality—leaders are increasingly managing collaborations between humans and AI. They assign tasks, coordinate workflows, and integrate human judgment with AI-generated insights to make collective decisions. This growing responsibility marks the emergence of a new leadership phenomenon: managing human–AI collaborations.
Unlike traditional leadership, where managers supervise only human subordinates, this form of leadership requires balancing the capabilities and needs of both human employees and AI systems. For example, in the finance industry, legal and compliance managers often delegate routine clause extraction to AI and assign complex cases to human experts. They supervise employees’ reviews of AI outputs and make final decisions based on both human and AI input. A similar logic applies in smart hotels, where managers assign routine deliveries to service robots while reserving personalized guest interactions for human staff. This approach promotes efficiency while preserving the human touch that guests value, thereby balancing automation with hospitality. Taken together, such practices suggest that managing human–AI collaborations has become a recurring and consequential feature of contemporary leadership across organizational contexts.
The Ethical Risk of Managing Human–AI Collaborations: Key Findings
Drawing on moral relativism theory, our research proposes that managing human–AI collaborations can reshape leaders’ moral reasoning. This form of management requires leaders to reconcile human-centered moral codes, such as fairness and empathy, with AI-centered principles, such as efficiency and accuracy. Constantly navigating these distinct standards may lead leaders to view moral rules as context-dependent—a relativistic stance that, in turn, increases their unethical behavior.
We further argue that these effects depend on leaders’ need for cognitive closure—the desire for clear and definite answers. Leaders high in cognitive closure prefer stable moral rules and are less susceptible to moral relativism, whereas those lower in cognitive closure are more comfortable with ambiguity and more likely to adjust moral standards across contexts.
This model was tested across four complementary studies—including experiments and a multi-wave field survey in the United States and China—with consistent support across methods and samples.
Taken together, these findings indicate that managing human–AI collaborations is not merely a technical challenge but a moral one: operating under multiple ethical frameworks can blur moral boundaries and elevate ethical risk, particularly for leaders who tolerate uncertainty.
Why It Matters
Our findings suggest that managing human–AI collaborations raises practical ethical challenges for organizations, particularly for those in leadership roles.
1. Ethical risk grows with AI-enabled management.
As AI becomes embedded in managerial work, leaders are increasingly required to balance human values with algorithmic criteria. Organizations should address this risk by building ethical safeguards into AI-supported workflows—for example, requiring leaders to explain or document AI-assisted decisions in sensitive cases. Making ethics part of routine decision processes can help prevent subtle moral slippage as AI use expands.
2. Leader characteristics shape ethical outcomes.
Leaders with a high need for cognitive closure—characterized by a preference for clarity and decisiveness—are better equipped to maintain consistent moral standards in AI-augmented roles. Accordingly, organizations should take such individual differences into account when selecting and developing leaders for positions that involve close interaction with AI. Leadership training programs should emphasize not only the effective use of AI but also the ability to recognize and manage ethical ambiguity.
3. Clear accountability reduces ethical ambiguity.
When AI informs decisions, unclear responsibility can weaken ethical accountability. Organizations should clearly define who is responsible for AI-assisted outcomes and establish transparent decision-ownership structures. Such clarity helps leaders treat AI-related decisions as moral responsibilities rather than purely technical tasks.
Who Should Read This Study and Why?
Our research suggests that managing human–AI collaborations transforms not only leaders’ work practices but also their moral reasoning. Appreciating this subtle shift is essential for sustaining integrity in organizations where AI has become a collaborative partner. This study will be particularly relevant to leaders and managers who oversee human–AI teams and seek to anticipate ethical challenges in their decision-making, as well as to human resource and ethics professionals who aim to cultivate ethical awareness in AI-enabled workplaces. Policy makers involved in AI governance can also draw on our findings to consider leaders’ psychological responses—not only algorithmic fairness—when designing accountability frameworks.
Final Thought
Technological innovation promises unprecedented efficiency and precision, but progress without ethical reflection carries hidden risks. As leaders manage both humans and AI, they confront ethical complexities that make moral boundaries less stable and more context-dependent. In an era where machines can simulate intelligence, preserving moral discernment is what ultimately distinguishes true leadership.
