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Attention to Whom? AI Adoption and Corporate Social Responsibility Toward Human Employees
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2026
Abstract
The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has profoundly reconfigured the contemporary workplace, redefining the interactions among human employees, AI systems, and organizational processes. Yet, most research adopts a tool-centric view, overlooking how AI’s emergence as an alternative working agent reshapes managerial attention and employee welfare. Drawing on the attention-based view (ABV) and a dual-agent model, we theorize that AI adoption activates two opposing mechanisms: a human attention gain mechanism, where collaboration needs heightened focus on employees and increased employee-related corporate social responsibility (ECSR), and an AI attention shift mechanism, where deep AI embedding redirects attention toward AI, suppressing ECSR. Using panel data from 2575 Chinese listed firms (2013–2023), we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between AI adoption and ECSR. Moreover, industry AI substitution risk sharpens and left-shifts this curve, while top management team (TMT) functional diversity and employee stock ownership flattens and right-shifts it. These findings advance research on AI adoption, managerial attention, and employee-focused CSR by illuminating how attention allocation in dual-agent contexts shapes ethical and strategic outcomes, offering actionable insights for balancing human–AI integration with sustained employee welfare.
摘要
人工智能(AI)的快速发展深刻改变了当代职场,重新定义了人类员工、AI系统和组织流程之间的互动关系。然而,大多数研究仍停留在工具视角,忽视了AI作为替代性工作代理的崛起如何重新塑造管理层的注意力分配并影响员工福利。本文基于注意力视角(ABV)和一个双代理模型,认为AI采纳激活了两种对立的机制:一是‘人类注意力增益机制,’即人机合作需求增加使管理层对员工的关注度提升,从而增强员工相关的企业社会责任(ECSR);二是‘AI注意力转移机制,’即AI的深度嵌入将管理层注意力转向AI本身,从而抑制了ECSR。通过分析2575家中国上市公司(2013–2023)的面板数据,我们发现AI采纳与ECSR之间呈现倒U型关系。此外,行业AI替代风险强化倒U型关系并向左偏移,而高层管理团队的职能多样性和员工持股则使曲线变得平缓并向右偏移。研究结果为AI采纳、管理层注意力分配以及ECSR研究提供了新的理论视角,揭示了双代理情境下注意力分配如何影响道德和战略结果,为平衡人类与AI协作以及员工福利的可持续发展提供了实践启示。
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- © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Association for Chinese Management Research.
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