PhD Student Human‑Centered AI‑First Organization (f/m/d)

Work environment

As part of your doctorate, you will work on a practical dissertation at the TrafoHub of Volkswagen Group IT at the interface of change management, human-centered AI and product organization. The TrafoHub is the central enabler for the transformation of Volkswagen Group IT towards a value-stream- and product-oriented organization based on the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Among other things, new collaboration models between IT and business as well as change and enablement approaches are developed, piloted and scaled here. Artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing processes, roles and decision-making logics. Our goal: a responsible human-centered transformation towards an AI-first organization. Your dissertation is closely linked to the ambitious AI offensive of Volkswagen Group IT and enables the active shaping of forward-looking work structures, role models and control and governance mechanisms. You will work in a real transformation setting and in co-creation with users. You will gain access to data, e.g. through stakeholder interviews, workshops, organizational and process artifacts. Formats such as guidelines, playbooks and training courses ensure a direct transfer into everyday work and offer the opportunity for empirical evaluation in the field. You don't just want to research the impact of AI – you want to actively shape it? Then we look forward to receiving your application!

Possible Tasks within this Role

• Investigating the effects of artificial intelligence (e.g. generative AI, agentic systems) on work, roles and decision-making responsibility in the product organization
• Analysing resistance, learning processes, psychological safety and the experience of meaning in the ongoing transformation context
• Conception and piloting of process and transformation models for an AI-first organization, taking into account change, participation and enablement aspects
• Deriving design principles for hybrid human-AI/human-agent teams in the product organization, new forms of collaboration, and future leadership, change, and enablement roles
• Further developing and integrating ethical guidelines, taking into account legal requirements

The final doctoral topic is defined together with the professor. The prerequisite for the cooperation is the confirmation of supervision as well as a confirmed delimitation of topics by the professor of a university or research institution entitled to confer a doctorate.

Qualification requirements

• Good to very good university degree qualifying for doctoral studies, e.g. in organizational, social or business psychology, business informatics, economics or engineering with a focus on organizational/IT topics, business administration
• Initial knowledge or practical experience in the following areas required: Change and Transformation Work, Artificial Intelligence, Agile Methods
• Strong interest in organizational development and AI-driven transformation
• German language level C1, English language level B2
• Analytical thinking skills as well as systematic, independent work
• Very good communication skills

Keywords

operating model, organizational AI design, AI‑driven transformation, digital organizational development, human‑machine interaction, AI governance research, future of work research, socio‑technical systems, transformation psychology, agile transformation research