Youngstown State University faculty members Patrick J. Bateman, Lariccia Family Endowed Professor and distinguished professor of management, and Christina Saenger, dean of the Williamson College of Business Administration and distinguished professor of marketing, presented research on the ethical legitimacy of artificial intelligence in organizational processes. The presentation took place at the 2026 Society for Business Ethics Annual Conference, held July 29-Aug. 1 in Philadelphia.
Bateman and Saenger’s paper, “Diffusion Is Not Justification: An Integrative Framework for Ethical Legitimacy Gaps in Organizational AI,” was featured during a session focused on legitimacy and corporate personhood.
The research addresses a growing issue as artificial intelligence becomes embedded in hiring, employee monitoring, productivity management, professional work and other organizational processes. The central argument is that an AI practice can become widely used, organizationally approved and part of routine work without necessarily being ethically justified.
“AI practices can become accepted very quickly when they are built into workflows, supported by organizational policy and reinforced by signals that others have already accepted them,” Bateman said. “Those things may explain why a practice comes to be accepted, but they do not answer whether the practice ought to be accepted.”
The paper integrates research on microlegitimacy, which helps explain how practices come to be viewed as appropriate or accepted, with a normative business ethics perspective. The resulting framework distinguishes perceived legitimacy, whether an AI practice is socially viewed as appropriate or normal, from ethical legitimacy, whether the norms governing the practice are ethically justified. Misalignment between the two creates what the authors call an ethical legitimacy gap.
“The people deciding that an AI system will be adopted are often not the same people who experience its consequences,” Bateman added. “That makes it important to look beyond whether a system is efficient, innovative or compliant and also consider whether affected stakeholders have meaningful awareness, voice, recourse and accountability.”
The Society for Business Ethics Annual Conference brings together business ethics scholars and practitioners from the United States and internationally to present new research and engage with emerging theoretical and practical issues.
“Artificial intelligence is creating important questions that are rapidly reshaping organizations and the future of work,” Saenger said. “It is important that YSU faculty contribute to those emerging conversations through scholarship and engagement with the broader academic and business community. Presenting this work at the Society for Business Ethics allows us to contribute insights to issues that will have significant implications for organizations, employees and society.”
The research was supported by the Lariccia Family Endowed Professorship at Youngstown State University.
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