Paul Leonardi
Paul Leonardi, Ph.D., is Department Chair and Duca Family Professor of Technology Management at UC Santa Barbara. He holds appointments in the Department of Technology Management and the Department of Communication.
Dr. Leonardi’s research, teaching, and consulting focus on helping companies to create and share knowledge more effectively. He is interested in how implementing new technologies and harnessing the power of informal social networks can help companies take advantage of their knowledge assets to create innovative products and services. He is an expert on digital transformation.
He has authored more than 70 articles that have appeared in top journals across the fields of Management, Communication, and Information Systems. He also publishes his work for managers and executives in outlets such as Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. He is the author of four books on technological innovation and organizational change, including the award-winning, Car Crashes Without Cars and Technology Choices. His latest book, The Digital Mindset: What it Really Takes to Thrive in the Age of Data, Algorithms, and AI (co-authored with Tsedal Neeley) is available now.
Dr. Leonardi is a Fellow of the Academy of Management and a Fellow of the International Communication Association. He has won major awards for his research from the Academy of Management, the American Sociological Association, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Association for Information Systems, the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association, and the National Science Foundation. He has also received two major teaching awards for graduate student mentorship and education.
Over the past decade, he has consulted regularly with companies on issues of digital transformation and organizational change. Recent engagements include work with Google, Microsoft, General Motors, Cisco, and YouTube. He is also a frequent keynote speaker for corporate trainings and user conferences on these and other topics related to innovation and change.
Recent publications
Leonardi, P. M. (2025). Homo Agenticus in the Age of Agentic AI: Agency Loops, Power Displacement, and the Circulation of Responsibility. Information and Organization, 35(3), 100582.
Beane, M. I., Leonardi, P. M. (2025). Pace Layering as a Metaphor for Organizing in the Age of Intelligent Technologies: Considering the Future of Work by Theorizing the Future of Organizing. Journal of Management Studies, 62(5), 2025-2052.
Bernstein, E. S., Gupta, P., Mortensen, M., & Leonardi, P. M. (2024). Collective Attention and Relational Overload: A Theory of Transactive Control in High-Permeability Intraorganizational Environments. Research in Organizational Behavior, 44, 100209.
Leonardi, P. M., & Leavell, V. (2024). How the Map Becomes the Territory: Prediction, Performativity and the Process of Taking Digital Twins for Granted. Journal of Organization Design, 13(3), 101-112.
Endacott, C. G., & Leonardi, P. M. (2024). Artificial Intelligence as a Mechanism of Algorithmic Isomorphism. In Research Handbook on Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making in Organizations (pp. 342-358). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Dailey, S. L., Pierce, C. S., Bailey, D. E., Leonardi, P. M., & Nardi, B. (2024). Being Creative Within (or Outside) the Box: Bridging Occupational Identity Gaps. Management Communication Quarterly, 38(1), 86-116.
Leonardi, P. M., Parker, S. H., & Shen, R. (2024). How Remote Work Changes the World of Work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 11(1), 193-219.
Leonardi, P. M., Pilny, A., Treem, J. W., & Sharma, N. (2024). Artificial Intelligence and Organizational Communication. Theory and Research, 445.
Flyverbom, M., Leonardi, P. M., & Navick, N. (2024). Digital Forensics: A Guide to Conducting Qualitative Research on Organizational Communication and Digital Technology. Qualitative Research in Organizational Communication, 589.
Rhee, L., & Leonardi, P. (2024). Borrowing Networks for Innovation: The Role of Attention Allocation in Secondhand Brokerage. Strategic Management Journal, 45(7), 1326-1365.
Keppler, S. M., & Leonardi, P. M. (2023). Building Relational Confidence in Remote and Hybrid Work Arrangements: Novel Ways to Use Digital Technologies to Foster Knowledge Sharing. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 28(4), zmad020.
Jarrahi, M. H., Monahan, K., & Leonardi, P. (2023). What Will Working with AI Really Require. Harvard Business Review.
Leonardi, P. (2023). Helping Employees Succeed with Generative AI. Harvard Business Review, 1.
Sergeeva, A., Argote, L., Alexy, O., Leonardi, P., & Faraj, S. (2023). Special Issue of Strategic Organization: “The Question of Intelligent Technology: Implications for Strategy and Organization”. Strategic Organization, 21(3), 733-734.
Leonardi, P. (2023). Affordances and Agency: Toward the Clarification and Integration of Fractured Concepts. MIS Quarterly, 47(4).
Lane, J. N., Leonardi, P. M., Contractor, N. S., & DeChurch, L. A. (2024). Teams in the Digital Workplace: Technology’s Role for Communication, Collaboration, and Performance. Small Group Research, 55(1), 139-183.
Keppler, S., & Leonardi, P. M. (2023). Developing Capabilities for Resourcing: A Comparative Study of the Relationship Between Problemistic and Opportunistic Resourcing in Schools. In Developing Capabilities for Resourcing: A Comparative Study of the Relationship Between Problemistic and Opportunistic Resourcing in Schools: Keppler, Samantha|; Leonardi, Paul M.. [Sl]: SSRN.
Adler, P. S., Adly, A., Armanios, D. E., Battilana, J., Bodrožić, Z., Clegg, S., ... & Sheppard-Jones, K. (2023). Authoritarianism, Populism, and the Global Retreat of Democracy: A Curated Discussion. Journal of Management Inquiry, 32(1), 3-20.
Faraj, S., & Leonardi, P. M. (2022). Strategic Organization in the Digital Age: Rethinking the Concept of Technology. Strategic Organization, 20(4), 771-785.
Leonardi, P. M. (2022). Collaborative Research: HCC: Medium: Big Data on the Dairy Farm: Relational Transformations across Agricultural Occupations and Organizations with the Rise of Digital Technologies. NSF Award Number 2211942. Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, 22(2211942), 11942.
Endacott, C. G., & Leonardi, P. M. (2022). Artificial Intelligence and Impression Management: Consequences of Autonomous Conversational Agents Communicating on One’s Behalf. Human Communication Research, 48(3), 462-490.
Bailey, D. E., Faraj, S., Hinds, P. J., Leonardi, P. M., & von Krogh, G. (2022). We are All Theorists of Technology Now: A Relational Perspective on Emerging Technology and Organizing. Organization Science, 33(1), 1-18.
Neeley, T., & Leonardi, P. (2022). Developing a Digital Mindset. Harvard Business Review, 100(5-6), 50-55.
Leonardi, P. M., Barley, W. C., & Woo, D. (2022). Why Should I Trust Your Model? How to Successfully Enroll Digital Models for Innovation. Innovation, 24(1), 47-64.
Kellogg, K. C., Leonardi, P., Lifshitz-Assaf, H., & Shaikh, M. (2022). The Future of Work is Here: Algorithmic Automation, Augmentation and the Way AI is Changing Work. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2022, No. 1, p. 12919). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
DeFilippis, E., Leonardi, P., Polzer, J. T., & Rahman, H. A. (2022). Emerging Technologies, Work Relationships, and the New Role of Middle Managers. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2022, No. 1, p. 14838). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
Endacott, C. G., & Leonardi, P. M. (2022). Keep Them Apart or Join Them Together? How Identification Processes Shape Orientations to Network Brokerage. Communication Research, 49(1), 61-92.
ter Hoeven, C. L., Stohl, C., Leonardi, P., & Stohl, M. (2021). Assessing Organizational Information Visibility: Development and Validation of the Information Visibility Scale. Communication Research, 48(6), 895-927.
Keppler, S. M., Smilowitz, K. R., & Leonardi, P. M. (2021). Contextual Trustworthiness of Organizational Partners: Evidence from Nine School Networks. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 23(4), 974-988.
Treem, J. W., Barley, W. C., & Leonardi, P. M. (2021). Resourcing Expertise: How Existing Schemas and Communication Processes Shape the Meaning of Expert Work in a Global Organization. Communication Monographs, 88(2), 237-262.
Leonardi, P. M., Woo, D., & Barley, W. C. (2021). On the Making of Crystal Balls: Five Lessons about Simulation Modeling and the Organization of Work. Information and Organization, 31(1), 100339.
Leonardi, P. (2021). Picking the Right Approach to Digital Collaboration. MIT Sloan Management Review, 92(3), 13-20.
Leonardi, P. M. (2020). COVID‐19 and the New Technologies of Organizing: Digital Exhaust, Digital footprints, and Artificial Intelligence in the Wake of Remote Work. Journal of Management Studies, 58(1), 249.