AI alone is not enough: Margherita Pagani explores the human drivers of business performance

Published in Information & Management, the research article “AI capability and organizational performance: Do team learning and creativity play a role?” brings together Nisreen Ameen, Jun-Hwa (Jacky) Cheah, Shlomo Tarba, Margherita Pagani, Eleonora Pantano and Senmao Xia. 

From AI capability to business value

As companies invest heavily in artificial intelligence, one question is becoming increasingly important: what actually enables organisations to turn AI technology into better performance?

Drawing on dynamic capability and resource-based theories, the researchers examine the human and organisational mechanisms behind this transformation. Their findings suggest that simply possessing AI resources is not enough. The ability of teams to learn and create plays a decisive role in turning technology into business outcomes. 

The paper is based on two studies conducted among service companies in China. The first, involving 600 managers, examines how team learning contributes to the development of AI capability and, subsequently, service innovation. 

The second, based on 276 managers, investigates how team creativity helps translate AI capability into service innovation and improved organisational performance. 

The results point to a clear sequence: team learning facilitates the development of AI capability, while team creativity enables companies to transform that capability into innovation and performance. 

Putting people at the heart of AI transformation

The findings echo a broader strand of Margherita Pagani’s research at SKEMA around human-centered AI, exploring how people and organisations interact with artificial intelligence and how emerging technologies transform business models. 

Rather than approaching AI transformation solely as a technological challenge, the new study highlights the importance of the people using these systems, the way they learn collectively and their capacity to develop new ideas with them.

This perspective also resonates with another recent study by Margherita Pagani and Yoram (Jerry) Wind, “Unlocking Marketing Creativity Using Artificial Intelligence”. That research explores AI as a creative partner capable of helping professionals generate ideas, identify unexpected possibilities and rethink creative processes, rather than simply replacing human creativity. Taken together, these studies point towards a similar conclusion: the value of AI does not lie in technology alone, but in the ability of people and organisations to work, learn and create with it.

About the publication

“AI capability and organizational performance: Do team learning and creativity play a role?” is authored by Nisreen Ameen, Jun-Hwa (Jacky) Cheah, Shlomo Tarba, Margherita Pagani, Eleonora Pantano and Senmao Xia, and published in Information & Management (Elsevier).