998: Next Decade Bot Research (20990)

Bots, automated entities in online social networks, have a substantial presence on digital platforms. They are capable of posting messages quickly and extensively, thereby potentially influencing communication dynamics and the spread of information. However, their behavior can range from ethical to unethical (Salge and Berente 2017), leading to either beneficial or detrimental effects in society. On the positive side, studies have demonstrated that bots can be valuable in organizational contexts, such as in coordinating tasks (Hukal et al. 2019) and influencing human-to-human interactions (Seering et al. 2018), particularly in communication processes (Safadi et al. (2021). Conversely, there is evidence that bots can sway public opinion (Forelle et al. 2015), diffuse information rapidly (Mønsted et al. 2017), affect political elections (Bessi and Ferrara 2016; Martini et al. 2021), and propagate false news (Shao et al. 2018). Additionally, bots pose challenges to the validity of online social network research due to the potential confounding effects they introduce, which scholars must carefully control and account for (Salge and Karahanna 2018). Following our two successful Professional Development Workshops (PDWs) on “Researching Bots in Online Social Networks” at the Academy of Management (AoM) 2022 Annual Meeting in Seattle, and on “Bot Theory, Methods, and Ethics” at the 2023 Annual Meeting in Boston, we have gained substantial insights into the opportunities and challenges associated with bot research. These workshops highlighted the widespread impact of bots and underscored the need for more comprehensive theorizing in this area, as discussed in Salge et al. (2022). Eager to continue enriching discussions and strengthening ties within the AoM community, we propose a new PDW titled “Next Decade Bot Research.” Through this workshop, we aim to: (1) Survey the first decade of research on bots. (2) Provide a research agenda that expands work on bots into new uncharted territories. (3) Discuss how bots can be leveraged for experimental research. (4) Converse about the implications of generative AI for research on bots. This PDW also aims to sustain and further develop the interdisciplinary community of scholars dedicated to bot research, a collective that we began nurturing two years ago in Seattle.