From Psychological Debt to Identity Reconstruction: A Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda for Human-AI Teaming in Organizations

As AI systems increasingly occupy roles resembling teammates rather than tools, organizational behavior research must move beyond trust and performance framings to address the identity-level consequences of this shift. This paper has proposed a conceptual framework describing three distinct identity responses to human-AI teaming, explicitly grounded both in established identity theory and in exploratory pilot evidence drawn from prior dissertation research on psychological debt. The pilot study should not be read as a completed investigation but as a starting point: it identified that identity-related distress is present and measurable, that it varies with career tenure, and that it is shaped by organizational framing, while leaving open exactly why these patterns occur and how they might be more precisely categorized. The conceptual framework and propositions developed here are intended to answer that open question, and the methodological pathway proposed in Section 6 offers a concrete, sequenced plan — from recoding existing pilot data, to fresh qualitative interviews, to a validated quantitative instrument — for turning this conceptual contribution into a full programme of doctoral research.

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