The rapid development of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) seen today are quickly reshaping many work environments. While it’s tempting to think that this is a new phenomenon, throughout history technology has had an enormous impact not only our work environments but all aspects of our lives, including what it means to be a person. In the mid 19th century, when the steam machine constituted the cusp of technological invention, the analogy to the human heart and the mechanics of the body rose as prominent metaphors both associating and separating the living human from the dead machine (Ketabgian, 2011). In the 1950s, when the term artificial intelligence was first coined, it came from a view where rationality, reasoning, and problem solving constituted the most prominent signs of intelligence (Bruner et al. 2017). The shift towards the integrative view where intelligence to a larger degree is defined by emotional understanding, creativity, and cultural knowledge parallels the observation that these dynamic cognitive abilities turned out to be much harder to mechanize than the pure rational problem solving, separating the person from the machine. Previous research investigating the effects of automation and AI on worker well-being report both positive and negative results. Nazareno & Schiff (2021) find that increased use of automation and AI at workplaces appears be associated with reduced stress among workers, but also with negative effects on worker health and mixed effects on job satisfaction. A recent study by Giuntella et al. (2025) find no evidence of a sizeable negative impact of AI on workers’ well-being and mental health. As generative AI enters the realm of creativity and robots reach work domains far outside factory floors, our notion of meaningful human work and a good work life change again. In this call for papers, we invite critical investigations of how the introduction and use of automation, robotization, and AI affect the nature of human work, job tasks, and worker well-being along the dimensions of worker freedom, sense of meaning, cognitive load, external monitoring, and insecurity. Contributions may also concern how this technological development affects the organizational and social work environment, as well as the way work is led and organized.
List of Topic Areas
Contributions may include, but are not limited to:
- How are the worker well-being effected by different designs and uses of robots & AI?
- What emotions arise among employees as robots and AI take on creative and emotional work, including work tasks within e.g., culture and health care?
- How do robots & AI impact employee participation and worker influence, including physical and cognitive workload?
- How do work roles and division of labor change when processes are partly automated?
- How are worker engagement and motivation effected by automatized support and guidance?
- What worker competences and professional development are needed as robots and AI become increasingly prominent parts of the work environment?
Submission Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here:
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see:
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal. We welcome original, unpublished work employing qualitative, quantitative, or mixed approaches. Submissions should demonstrate methodological rigor and offer clear implications for research, practice, and policy.
Key Dates
Opening date for manuscript submissions: 17 December 2025
Closing date for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2026
Journal Information: Scopus Journal Q1, H-Index 83
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