2024 Future of Work Research Prize awarded to Max Bogaert from KU Leuven
Zurich (Switzerland) — 12 February 2024
Max Bogaert (KU Leuven) receives the fourth annual UZH CLFW Future of Work Research Prize and Tyler Fezzey (University of Alabama) is honored as runner-up.
The Center for Leadership in the Future of Work is delighted to announce the winner and runners-up for the fourth annual Future of Work Research Prize.
Max Bogaert, a PhD Candidate in the field of Work and Organisation Studies at KU Leuven, has been honored with the award for his project entitled “Re-imagining the future of work” with collaborators Nicky Dries (KU Leuven), and Joost Luyckx (IÉSEG School of Management). The research explores the cultural representation of the future of work in dystopian science fiction (SF) films. By studying the values, narratives, and aesthetics that underscore these imagined futures of work, Bogaert aims to offer critical and valuable insight into newly developing ideas and narratives on hope, democratization of work, and worker resistance in times of AI. The analytical focus of this three-part research project is on the affective dimension of future of work imaginaries, encountered in SF films. Drawing on alternative futures research, the literature on resistance, affect theory, and empirical film studies, his project explores the “materiality” of affect and the social infrastructures it facilitates within organizations. Continuing the deeply rooted dialogue between technological determinism and science fiction films, Bogaert’s research offers guidelines as to how workers can actively reimagine and influence the future of work, rather than passively accepting it as inevitable. Click on the image above to view a short video of Max Bogaert’s research proposal.
The jury members also selected as runner-up Tyler Fezzey, a Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant at the University of Alabama, for her project entitled “The Wild West Future of Work” with collaborators Peter D. Harms (University of Alabama) and Joshua V. White (Samford University). Her proposed research explores how dark personality traits influence both entry into and sustained success within remote work, gig work, social media careers, and alternative finance, markers of “the emerging entrepreneurial economy.” Using idiographic analyses, the research aims to redefine how we understand personality traits in emerging entrepreneurial contexts, bridging theory and practice to inform organizational and policy-level strategies for managing these dynamic work arrangements.
The Center would also like to congratulate the three additional finalists for the submission of their exciting projects:
Pengzhao Lyu (Cambridge Judge Business School), “Shaping Human Morality: The Effects of AI on Human Moral Cognition and Decision-Making”
Kai Krautter (Harvard Business School), “Passion in the Future of Work”
Tianyu He (NUS Business School), “Learning to Collaborate: How Humans Identify Relative Expertise in Human-AI Collaboration”
The team at the CLFW would like to thank all of the submitters for their excellent contributions and inspirational research questions, all of which spoke to important human challenges in the future of work. We wish you all the best of luck with the future of your research!
The Future of Work Research Prize will return next year, opening submissions for the fifth annual prize in Summer 2025. Sign up to our newsletter to stay informed of the publication of solicitations for submission.