Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

The Time to Save Time: AI Integration in a High-Performance Professional Service Firm

Anderberg, Simon LU and Hansius, Joel LU (2026) BUSN49 20261
Department of Business Administration
Abstract
Purpose: AI is positioned in management research as a time-saving augmentation, a promise that should resonate most strongly with firms whose culture is built on time efficiency. Yet that very orientation may be what makes the technology hard to absorb. Through a single-case study of a small professional service firm integrating AI, this thesis examines how that tension unfolds in practice. We ask: How does a high-performance culture organized around saving time shape members' engagement with AI as a time-saving technology in a small professional service firm?
Methodology: This qualitative, interpretive single-case study draws on symbolic interactionism and employs a self-ethnographic configuration in which one of the authors works at the... (More)
Purpose: AI is positioned in management research as a time-saving augmentation, a promise that should resonate most strongly with firms whose culture is built on time efficiency. Yet that very orientation may be what makes the technology hard to absorb. Through a single-case study of a small professional service firm integrating AI, this thesis examines how that tension unfolds in practice. We ask: How does a high-performance culture organized around saving time shape members' engagement with AI as a time-saving technology in a small professional service firm?
Methodology: This qualitative, interpretive single-case study draws on symbolic interactionism and employs a self-ethnographic configuration in which one of the authors works at the firm. We conducted 11 semi-structured interviews with members across all roles and analyzed the material abductively through sorting, reducing, and arguing.
Theoretical Framing: The thesis brings the augmentation discourse, which positions AI as a time-saving technology, into conversation with literature on the demands of AI integration. It approaches this conversation through temporal structuring and the distinction between clock-time and process-time. These dynamics intensify in high-performance professional service firms, where time serves as both the unit of value and the basis for evaluating members.
Contributions: The study finds that the firm's temporal logic shapes members' engagement with AI in ways that reproduce the very conditions that make sustained integration difficult, producing a self-defeating loop that the culture cannot resolve from within. What makes these firms excellent at client delivery is what makes AI integration structurally difficult to sustain. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Anderberg, Simon LU and Hansius, Joel LU
supervisor
organization
course
BUSN49 20261
year
type
H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
subject
keywords
Artificial Intelligence, Professional Service Firms, High-Performance Organizations, Temporal Structuring, Clock-time, Process-time
language
English
id
9237585
date added to LUP
2026-06-18 16:38:15
date last changed
2026-06-18 16:38:15
@misc{9237585,
  abstract     = {{Purpose: AI is positioned in management research as a time-saving augmentation, a promise that should resonate most strongly with firms whose culture is built on time efficiency. Yet that very orientation may be what makes the technology hard to absorb. Through a single-case study of a small professional service firm integrating AI, this thesis examines how that tension unfolds in practice. We ask: How does a high-performance culture organized around saving time shape members' engagement with AI as a time-saving technology in a small professional service firm?
Methodology: This qualitative, interpretive single-case study draws on symbolic interactionism and employs a self-ethnographic configuration in which one of the authors works at the firm. We conducted 11 semi-structured interviews with members across all roles and analyzed the material abductively through sorting, reducing, and arguing.
Theoretical Framing: The thesis brings the augmentation discourse, which positions AI as a time-saving technology, into conversation with literature on the demands of AI integration. It approaches this conversation through temporal structuring and the distinction between clock-time and process-time. These dynamics intensify in high-performance professional service firms, where time serves as both the unit of value and the basis for evaluating members.
Contributions: The study finds that the firm's temporal logic shapes members' engagement with AI in ways that reproduce the very conditions that make sustained integration difficult, producing a self-defeating loop that the culture cannot resolve from within. What makes these firms excellent at client delivery is what makes AI integration structurally difficult to sustain.}},
  author       = {{Anderberg, Simon and Hansius, Joel}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{The Time to Save Time: AI Integration in a High-Performance Professional Service Firm}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}