Dr Tapani Rinta-Kahila

Lecturer in Business Info Systems

School of Business

Faculty of Business, Economics and Law

t.rintakahila@uq.edu.au
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Overview

Dr Tapani Rinta-Kahila is a Lecturer of Business Information Systems and an ARC DECRA Fellow at The University of Queensland Business School. He holds a doctoral degree from Aalto University School of Business, where he wrote an award-winning dissertation on the decommissioning of organisational information systems.

His research focuses on issues around the implementation and management of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in organisations, unintended consequences of technology use, and replacement of organisational information systems (IS). In particular, Tapani strives to understand how contemporary technologies such as AI affect the way in which people learn, work and organise, and how the negative consequences of such technologies can be managed.

Tapani's research has appeared in leading IS journals, including MIS Quarterly, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Information Technology, Information & Management, and MIS Quarterly Executive, as well as in leading IS conferences, such as ICIS, ECIS, HICSS, and ACIS. His publication "Algorithmic decision-making and system destructiveness: A case of automatic debt recovery" in European Journal of Information Systems was awarded the prestigious Stafford Beer Medal and AIS Senior Scholar Best IS Publication Award in 2023. Moreover, his research achievements more generally have been recognised with awards for Early-Career Research Excellence from the UQ Business School and BEL Faculty, and his industry engagement received the UQ Early-to-Mid-Career Researcher Industry Engagement Award and UQ BEL Faculty Research Engagement and Impact Award.

Tapani serves as an Associate Editor for leading IS conferences ICIS and ECIS, as a Minitrack Chair for HICSS, and as a regular reviewer for the leading IS journals (JAIS, EJIS, ISJ, JIT, I&M, BISE, MISQ Executive, etc) and conferences (ICIS, ECIS, HICSS, PACIS, ACIS, WI etc).

Research Interests

Automation and Erosion of Expertise
Technologies like AI are becoming increasingly sophisticated, allowing the automation of many types of activities that were previously conducted exclusively by humans. What happens to our skills and abilities when we offload an increasing share of our cognitive functions to technology? What are the individual and organisational implications of becoming more and more dependent on AI? Is the erosion of skills inevitable, or can we find ways to consciously manage it?
Organisational AI implementation: challenges and opportunities
AI technology promises significant benefits to organisations but reaping those benefits is far from simple. How can organisations implement AI responsibly while making most of the technology's benefits? How can they deal with issues related to accountability in algorithmic decision-making, the inscrutability of complex AI models, and potential biases stemming from data and algorithms?

Research Impacts

Tapani's research has informed the professional practice of several industry partners. For instance, his collaboration with the SAP Institute for Digital Government has resulted in four thought-leadership reports co-authored with SAP practitioners. These reports outline approaches to responsible AI implementation in the public sector, and they have been distributed widely in the global SAP organisation and translated into several languages. Further, Tapani has conducted societally important research on the Australian welfare debt recollection scandal known as Robodebt, and his published articles on the topic have garnered attention from the media (ABC Radio, SBS News, Reuters). Through his work, Tapani strives to contribute to creating a more informed and responsible culture around the use and implementation of cutting-edge AI technologies.

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy of Science (Advanced), Aalto University

Publications

Conference Publication: An AI-enabled community safety service: stakeholder benefits and vulnerabilities

Pool, Javad, Smith, Natalie, Dodds, Hunter, Lockey, Steven, Curtis, Caitlin, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Gillespie, Nicole (2023). An AI-enabled community safety service: stakeholder benefits and vulnerabilities. Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS), Wellington, New Zealand, 5 - 8 December 2023. Atlanta, GA, United States: Association for Information Systems.
Conference Publication: Building and sustaining communities in online labour platforms

Suvivuo, Sampsa, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Tuunainen, Virpi (2023). Building and sustaining communities in online labour platforms. European Conference on Information Systems, Kristiansand, Norway, 13-16 June 2023. New York, NY United States: Elsevier.
Journal Article: Unethical but not illegal! A critical look at two-sided disinformation platforms: justifications, critique, and a way forward

Soliman, Wael and Rinta-Kahila, Tapani (2023). Unethical but not illegal! A critical look at two-sided disinformation platforms: justifications, critique, and a way forward. Journal of Information Technology. doi: 10.1177/02683962231181145

View all Publications

Grants

Maintaining Human Expertise in an AI-driven World

(2024–2027) ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
Creating Value with Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector - Stage 2

(2021–2022) SAP SE - Walldorf

View all Grants

Supervision

HOW AI SERVICE AGENTS INFLUENCE ENGAGEMENT IN LIVE STREAMING: PERSPECTIVE OF IT AFFORDANCE & ANTHROPOMORPHISM

Doctor Philosophy
Developing Data-Driven Organisations

Doctor Philosophy

View all Supervision

Publications

Journal Article

Unethical but not illegal! A critical look at two-sided disinformation platforms: justifications, critique, and a way forward

Soliman, Wael and Rinta-Kahila, Tapani (2023). Unethical but not illegal! A critical look at two-sided disinformation platforms: justifications, critique, and a way forward. Journal of Information Technology. doi: 10.1177/02683962231181145
Managing unintended consequences of algorithmic decision-making: the case of Robodebt

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Someh, Ida, Gillespie, Nicole, Indulska, Marta and Gregor, Shirley (2023). Managing unintended consequences of algorithmic decision-making: the case of Robodebt. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases. doi: 10.1177/20438869231165538
Getting trapped in technical debt: sociotechnical analysis of a legacy system’s replacement

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Penttinen, Esko and Lyytinen, Kalle (2023). Getting trapped in technical debt: sociotechnical analysis of a legacy system’s replacement. MIS Quarterly, 47 (1), 1-32. doi: 10.25300/misq/2022/16711
The vicious circles of skill erosion: a case study of cognitive automation

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Penttinen, Esko, Salovaara, Antti, Soliman, Wael and Ruissalo, Joona (2023). The vicious circles of skill erosion: a case study of cognitive automation. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 24 (5) 2, 1378-1412. doi: 10.17705/1jais.00829
Algorithmic decision-making and system destructiveness: a case of automatic debt recovery

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Someh, Ida, Gillespie, Nicole, Indulska, Marta and Gregor, Shirley (2021). Algorithmic decision-making and system destructiveness: a case of automatic debt recovery. European Journal of Information Systems, 31 (3), 1-26. doi: 10.1080/0960085X.2021.1960905
Customer reactions to self-checkout discontinuance

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Penttinen, Esko, Kumar, Ashish and Janakiraman, Ramkumar (2021). Customer reactions to self-checkout discontinuance. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 61 102498, 102498. doi: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102498
Organizational transformation with intelligent automation: Case Nokia Software

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Penttinen, Esko and Lyytinen, Kalle (2021). Organizational transformation with intelligent automation: Case Nokia Software. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases, 11 (2), 204388692095487-109. doi: 10.1177/2043886920954874
Four flavours of customers: a dual-system perspective on self-service technology use

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Penttinen, Esko (2021). Four flavours of customers: a dual-system perspective on self-service technology use. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 25, 1-27. doi: 10.3127/ajis.v25i0.2671
Sociotechnical envelopment of artificial intelligence: an approach to organizational deployment of inscrutable artificial intelligence systems

Asatiani, Aleksandre, Malo, Pekka, Nagbol, Per Radberg, Penttinen, Esko, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Salovaara, Antti (2021). Sociotechnical envelopment of artificial intelligence: an approach to organizational deployment of inscrutable artificial intelligence systems. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 22 (2), 325-352. doi: 10.17705/1jais.00664
Challenges of explaining the behavior of black-box AI systems

Asatiani, Aleksandre, Malo, Pekka, Nagb, Per Radberg, Penttinen, Esko, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Salovaara, Antti (2020). Challenges of explaining the behavior of black-box AI systems. MIS Quarterly Executive, 19 (4), 259-278. doi: 10.17705/2msqe.00037
Toward a refined conceptualization of IS discontinuance: reflection on the past and a way forward

Soliman, Wael and Rinta-Kahila, Tapani (2019). Toward a refined conceptualization of IS discontinuance: reflection on the past and a way forward. Information and Management, 57 (2) 103167, 103167. doi: 10.1016/j.im.2019.05.002
Onboarding customer companies to electronic invoicing platform - developing a marketing and a partnering strategy for Tieto, an e-invoicing service provider

Penttinen, Esko and Rinta-Kahila, Tapani (2017). Onboarding customer companies to electronic invoicing platform - developing a marketing and a partnering strategy for Tieto, an e-invoicing service provider. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases, 7 (1), 43-50. doi: 10.1057/s41266-016-0015-x

Conference Publication

An AI-enabled community safety service: stakeholder benefits and vulnerabilities

Pool, Javad, Smith, Natalie, Dodds, Hunter, Lockey, Steven, Curtis, Caitlin, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Gillespie, Nicole (2023). An AI-enabled community safety service: stakeholder benefits and vulnerabilities. Australasian Conference on Information Systems (ACIS), Wellington, New Zealand, 5 - 8 December 2023. Atlanta, GA, United States: Association for Information Systems.
Building and sustaining communities in online labour platforms

Suvivuo, Sampsa, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Tuunainen, Virpi (2023). Building and sustaining communities in online labour platforms. European Conference on Information Systems, Kristiansand, Norway, 13-16 June 2023. New York, NY United States: Elsevier.
A domino effect: interdependencies among different types of technical debt

Mäki, Netta, Penttinen, Esko and Rinta-Kahila, Tapani (2023). A domino effect: interdependencies among different types of technical debt. 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Maui, HI, United States, 3-6 January 2023. Washington, DC, United States: IEEE Computer Society.
Robotic process automation from the design-capital perspective - effects on technical debt and digital options

Ruha, Lauri, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Penttinen, Esko (2023). Robotic process automation from the design-capital perspective - effects on technical debt and digital options. 56th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Maui, HI, United States, 3-6 January 2023. Washington, DC, United States: IEEE Computer Society.
Pressuring trading partners to adopt a business-to-business connectivity platform - stick or carrot?

Esko Penttinen, Tapani Rinta-Kahila and Jukka Sihvonen (2021). Pressuring trading partners to adopt a business-to-business connectivity platform - stick or carrot?. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Maui, HI, United States, 4-8 January 2021. Honolulu, HI, United States: University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
How to enforce presenteeism with ICT while mitigating technostress – a case study

Luoma, Roni, Penttinen, Esko and Rinta-Kahila, Tapani (2020). How to enforce presenteeism with ICT while mitigating technostress – a case study. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences , Maui, HI, United States, 7-10 January 2020. Maui, HI, United States: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. doi: 10.24251/hicss.2020.749
Implementation of automation as distributed cognition in knowledge work organizations: six recommendations for managers

Asatiani, Aleksandre, Penttinen, Esko, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Salovaara, Antti (2019). Implementation of automation as distributed cognition in knowledge work organizations: six recommendations for managers. 40th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2019), Munich, Germany, 15-18 December 2019. Atlanta, GA USA: Association for Information Systems.
Why is your crowd abandoning you? Exploring crowdsourcing discontinuance through the lens of motivation theory

Soliman, Wael, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Kaikkonen, Joona (2019). Why is your crowd abandoning you? Exploring crowdsourcing discontinuance through the lens of motivation theory. Australasian Conference on Information Systems, Perth, WA, Australia, 8-11 December 2019. New York, United States: Association for Information Systems.
Caught in between: how an organization became a prisoner of its legacy system after is change

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani (2018). Caught in between: how an organization became a prisoner of its legacy system after is change. 39th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2018), San Francisco, CA United States, 13-16 December 2018. Atlanta, GA United States: Association for Information Systems.
Consequences of discontinuing knowledge work automation - surfacing of deskilling effects and methods of recovery

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Penttinen, Esko, Salovaara, Antti and Soliman, Wael (2018). Consequences of discontinuing knowledge work automation - surfacing of deskilling effects and methods of recovery. 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2018), Waikoloa Village, Big Island, HI, United States, 2-6 January 2018. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. doi: 10.24251/hicss.2018.654
How to check out?: an empirical exploration of customers’ different cognitive processes in retailing context

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Penttinen, Esko and Pääsky, Hans-Petteri (2018). How to check out?: an empirical exploration of customers’ different cognitive processes in retailing context. 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2018), Waikoloa Village, Big Island, HI, United States, 2-6 January 2018. Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. doi: 10.24251/hicss.2018.487
Unethical but not illegal: uncovering the persuasive messages leveraged by providers of the “real” online social impressions

Soliman, Wael and Rinta-Kahila, Tapani (2018). Unethical but not illegal: uncovering the persuasive messages leveraged by providers of the “real” online social impressions. 26th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2018), Portsmouth, United Kingdom, 23-28 June 2018. Association for Information Systems.
Understanding crowdturfing: the different ethical logics behind the clandestine industry of deception

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani and Soliman, Wael (2017). Understanding crowdturfing: the different ethical logics behind the clandestine industry of deception. 25th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2017), Guimaraes, Portugal, 5-10 June 2017. Association for Information Systems.
Unfolding the types of organizational inertia in information systems adoption

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Penttinen, Esko and Nevalainen, Anssi (2016). Unfolding the types of organizational inertia in information systems adoption. 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2016), Koloa, Kauai, HI, United States, 5-8 January 2016. Los Alamitos, CA, United States: IEEE Computer Society. doi: 10.1109/hicss.2016.486
Triggering intention to use to actual use - empirical evidence from self-service checkout (SCO) systems

Penttinen, Esko, Kahila, Tapani-Rinta, Ronkko, Mikko and Saarinen, Timo (2014). Triggering intention to use to actual use - empirical evidence from self-service checkout (SCO) systems. 47th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2014), Waikoloa, HI, United States, 06-09 January 2014. Washington, DC, United States: IEEE Computer Society. doi: 10.1109/hicss.2014.414

Other Outputs

Redesigning work with Artificial Intelligence

Bidar, Reihaneh, Someh, Ida, Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Williams, Katie, Indulska, Marta and Ryan, Ian (2023). Redesigning work with Artificial Intelligence. SAP Thought Leadership Paper: Public Sector Brisbane, Australia; Canberra, Australia: The University of Queensland; SAP Institute for Digital Government. doi: 10.14264/6428cca
Building Artificial Intelligence capability in the public sector

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Someh, Ida, Indulska, Marta and Ryan, I. (2022). Building Artificial Intelligence capability in the public sector. SAP Thought Leadership Paper: Public Sector Brisbane, Australia; Canberra, Australia: The University of Queensland; SAP Institute for Digital Government. doi: 10.14264/91738b9
Building explainability into public sector artificial intelligence: helping stakeholders understand the thinking behind AI decision-making

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Someh, Ida, Indulska, Marta, Ryan, Ian and van Leent, Ryan (2021). Building explainability into public sector artificial intelligence: helping stakeholders understand the thinking behind AI decision-making. SAP Thought Leadership Paper: Public Sector Brisbane, Australia: The University of Queensland; SAP SE.
Delivering AI programs in the public sector: guidelines for government leaders

Rinta-Kahila, Tapani, Someh, Ida, Gillespie, Nicole, Indulska, Marta, Gregor, Shirley , Van Leent, Ryan and Ryan, Ian (2020). Delivering AI programs in the public sector: guidelines for government leaders. Brisbane, Australia: The University of Queensland and SAP SE.

Grants (Administered at UQ)

Maintaining Human Expertise in an AI-driven World

(2024–2027) ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
Creating Value with Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector - Stage 2

(2021–2022) SAP SE - Walldorf

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

HOW AI SERVICE AGENTS INFLUENCE ENGAGEMENT IN LIVE STREAMING: PERSPECTIVE OF IT AFFORDANCE & ANTHROPOMORPHISM

Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor
Other advisors:
- Associate Professor Christoph Breidbach
Developing Data-Driven Organisations

Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor
Other advisors:
- Professor Marta Indulska
- Dr Ida Asadi Someh

This staff member is a UQ Expert for media in the following fields:

IT system replacement, case study, qualitative research, information systems, artificial intelligence

They are happy to lend their expertise to your articles or broadcasts and share their research discoveries and insights with the community via media channels.

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