AI-drenaline Rush: Unpacking the Event-Driven Psychology of Organizational AI Adoption
Harish Yadav, Rajib Lochan Dhar · Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025
Organizational AI adoption consists of multiple events co-occurring closely in space and time, each with distinct properties such as novelty, disruption, and criticality, collectively forming an event cluster. These events shape employees' subjective experiences by disrupting psychological equilibrium and triggering cognitive appraisals. However, existing research often focuses on static factors, offering an incomplete understanding of this dynamic process. To address this gap, this paper integrates event system theory (EST), transactional theory of stress and coping (TTSC), and the concept of subjective experiences to explore how event properties influence employees' cognitive appraisals, which, in turn, drive their emotional and behavioral responses. This perspective shifts the narrative from static constructs to the fluid interplay of events and appraisals, offering a richer, more human-centered understanding of organizational AI adoption. By positioning cognitive appraisals as the mechanism linking event properties to subjective experiences, this paper bridges critical gaps in event-oriented organizational change literature and subjective experience research. The proposed framework provides actionable insights for managing disruptive technological transitions and establishes a foundation for future research on the implications for employee well-being and effective organizational transformation.