Small and medium-sized enterprises make up the majority of Canadian businesses, and their leaders are increasingly told that adopting artificial intelligence is no longer optional but essential to staying competitive. Yet many of these leaders are being asked to act on AI-generated recommendations without the governance structures or technical expertise that larger organizations rely on. As a result, decisions with real financial, strategic, and ethical weight are already being shaped by tools whose reasoning is difficult to question and whose authority often goes unchallenged.
This is why Professor Francis Desjardins has been awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant for his research project titled "Between Human Judgment and Algorithmic Authority: How SME Leaders Interpret and Justify AI Advice."
Most existing research on AI adoption focuses on highly structured environments like healthcare, aviation, and public administration, leaving the reality of small business decision-making largely unexamined. SME leaders routinely turn to internal experts and outside professionals such as accountants, consultants, bankers, and lawyers. However, they are now increasingly weighing advice generated by AI.
Comparing Human and Machine Advice in Real Decisions
To understand how leaders navigate this shifting landscape, Professor Desjardins will conduct roughly thirty semi-structured interviews with SME owners, founders, senior managers, and key decision contributors across multiple sectors in Canada. Drawing on moral ethics and responsibility, participants will be asked to recount two comparable decisions: one shaped by AI-generated recommendations and one shaped primarily by human advice. Using narrative interviewing and comparative analysis, the project will examine how leaders assign credibility, authority, and responsibility differently depending on whether the advice came from a person or an algorithm, also what happens when human and machine input point in different directions.
Why This Research Matters
As AI become embedded in everyday business decisions, understanding how leaders use them matters far beyond academia. The project's findings will advance theoretical understanding of managerial judgment, agency, and accountability in workplaces where human and algorithmic advice increasingly coexist, contributing new knowledge across organization theory, information systems, and moral psychology. For SME leaders, advisors, and professional communities, the research will offer practical clarity on when and why AI recommendations are trusted, resisted, or contested, informing how businesses build responsible AI practices without formal governance teams to guide them. The project will also train graduate research assistants in qualitative research methods, building capacity for future work on human-AI decision-making. Ultimately, this research aims to help SMEs harness the benefits of AI while preserving the human judgment and accountability that responsible leadership demands.
