• Contemporary capitalism is being reshaped by two forces above all others: financialization and digitalization. Financial and digital innovations—the primary vehicles through which financialization and digitalization unfold—are transforming how value is created, extracted, and distributed, extending their logics deep into business, society, and the state. Together, these forces are redefining who holds power in the global economy and on what terms.

    My research directly addresses these transformations of contemporary capitalism. Across different projects, I examine how financial and digital innovations reshape markets, institutions, and power structures. My overarching goal is to understand how such innovations can be governed to serve people and the planet.

    Addressing these questions requires an interdisciplinary perspective. I work at the intersection of Political Economy and Information Systems, a combination that allows me to bring a macro-structural analysis of capitalism, power, and the state into conversation with sociotechnical accounts of how digital and financial innovations are designed, deployed, and governed in organisational and societal contexts.

    My work spans four main themes: financial innovation and financialisation; the sociotechnical construction of financial markets; the societal impact of fintech; and AI capitalism.

    My early research—published in New Political Economy, Competition & Change, and Finance and Society—examined the political economy of financial innovation. In this work, I analyzed how governments use derivatives and securitization as instruments of statecraft, becoming tools through which political actors pursue strategic objectives—often in ways that prioritize short-term gains over long-term financial stability.

    Subsequently, reflecting a broader shift in financial innovation from financial engineering towards financial technologies, I explored the sociotechnical construction of financial markets. My research on dark pools and algorithmic trading—published in Consumption Markets & Culture—shows how market actors deploy visual strategies to legitimize new, and often controversial, trading venues.

    I later turned to the societal implications of fintech. In my paper published in Information Systems Journal, I developed a conceptual framework to guide Information Systems research on how fintech can enhance financial inclusion and reduce poverty in emerging markets.

    More recently, my research has turned to AI capitalism, examining how data, machine learning (ML), and compute are becoming central axes of economic power.

    My work on asset manager capitalism and the political economy of AI—published in Review of International Political Economy—highlights how intelligent technologies generate competitive advantage and market power. I explored the AI-driven rules of the game in asset management, which require investment management giants like BlackRock and Blackstone to integrate AI into their business models, leverage data and digital infrastructures for ML operations, and strategize within a data economy dominated by hyperscalers and big tech firms.

    Building on this agenda, my current research extends the AI capitalism theme in two directions: the governance of AI for sustainability, and the regulation of AI-enabled fintech innovations.

    As part of the sustainable AI project, I am currently working on a paper that theorizes the paradox of AI for sustainability—the fundamental tension between AI's promise of environmental benefits and its systemic environmental costs—and argues for a transformative, society-led governance response that goes beyond the technology-driven strategies currently pursued by hyperscalers.

    I am also conducting field research on the strategies, organizational dynamics, and technological choices of sustainable generative AI, developing a grant proposal on this topic, and preparing a book proposal that advances a vision of AI as an ecosystem that must be grounded in environmental sustainability, fair labour practices, and democratic governance.

    The second project addresses the regulatory challenges posed by AI-enabled fintech innovations. In a working paper, my co-authors and I draw on Information Systems research and the relational theory of risk to develop a “risk work” framework that conceptualizes fintech risks as sociotechnical relationships across layers of the AI technology stack. This framework offers concrete supervisory tools for policymakers and regulators.

    • Business, societal, political, and environmental implications of AI

    • Fintech and the future of finance

    • Financialization and financial innovations

    • Digitalization and digital innovations

    • Sociotechnical perspective in Information Systems (IS)

    • International Political Economy (IPE)

    • Qualitative and conceptual research

    • Lagna, A., & Lee, S. “Theorizing the Paradox of AI for Sustainability.” [paper]

    • Lagna, A, & Lee, S. Sustainable AI: Rethinking Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet [book].

    • Alraddadi, A., Champion, D., & Lagna, A. “Workarounds and Technology Affordance Actualization” [paper]

    • Joshi, M., Lagna, A., Pahuja, A., Rizopoulos, E., & Zachariadis, M. "Regulating AI-Enabled FinTech Innovations." [paper]