Innovation at the Edge of Chaos: Frictions in the Education Ecosystem in the Age of GenAI

This paper investigates how universities are approaching the integration of Generative AI (GenAI)within teaching practices, focusing on the ongoing transformation of the broader educational serviceecosystem. Drawing from a qualitative, exploratory study grounded in the Gioia methodology, weanalyze institutional policies, experiential practices, and stakeholder perceptions—along with reflexiveinsights from an AI agent (ChatGPT)—to explore how GenAI is framed, encouraged, or restricted.While universities engage in multiple missions—teaching, research, and third mission—this studydeliberately focuses on teaching, a domain where contradictions are most visible, and where thetensions triggered by GenAI unfold with greater immediacy, according to both faculty and studentsthat have been interviewed. The paper argues that the higher education service ecosystem isapproaching a state of “edge of chaos,” a condition of free complexity in which roles, norms, and valuecreation practices are being redefined or the ecosystem will collapse. The contribution offerstheoretical and managerial insights on how universities might navigate this liminal state to remainrelevant and generative actors in the future education ecosystem.