Trial lecture
“The good, the bad, and the ugly of AI from a knowledge-based view”
Time and place: June 16, 2026 11:15 AM. Kristen Nygaards sal (5370), Ole-Johan Dahls hus.
Main research findings
Organizations have long relied on outsourcing to manage their digital solutions and the expertise required to develop them. Today, digital transformation is changing how organizations create value and how they organize their systems and capabilities. As digital technologies become central to their work, many organizations are rethinking how they develop solutions and what to rely on external actors for.
The thesis explores organizations’ decisions about what to keep in-house and what to outsource to vendors in a digital context. Specifically, it explores a case where a large Scandinavian municipality decided to develop a low-code platform through collaboration between developers and people with little prior coding experience, reflecting a shift in how these decisions are made.
The thesis has three key findings. First, organizations move beyond outsourcing by combining different sourcing approaches (insourcing, outsourcing, and backsourcing), for example by building solutions in-house on top of external platforms. Second, access to and control over data have become central in deciding what to keep in-house. Third, new development tools, such as AI and low-code, make it easier to build and adapt solutions internally, enabling organizations to shift work between internal and external actors.
The thesis develops an analytical framework for understanding sourcing decisions in a context shaped by new digital technologies and changing needs.
Adjudication committee
- Professor Oliver Krancher, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- Associate Professor Casandra Grundstrom, NTNU, Norway
- Associate Professor Lena Hylving, University of Oslo, Norway
Supervisors
Associate Professor Alexander Moltubakk Kempton, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Professor Margunn Aanestad, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Professor Viktoria Stray, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Chair of defence
Contact information at Department: Pernille Adine Nordby