From acclaim to blame: evidence of a person sensitivity decision bias

AI-based chatbots in conversational commerce and their effects on product and price perceptions

The rise of AI-based chatbots has gradually changed the way consumers shop. Natural language processing (NLP) technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are likely to accelerate this trend further. However, consumers still prefer to engage with humans and resist chatbots, which are often perceived as impersonal and lacking the human touch. While the predominant tendency is to make chatbots appear more humanlike, little is known about how anthropomorphic verbal design cues in chatbots influence perceived product personalization and willingness to pay a higher product price in conversational commerce contexts. In the current work, we set out to test this through one pre-test (N = 135) and two online experiments (N = 180 and 237). We find that anthropomorphism significantly and positively affects perceived product personalization, and that this effect is moderated by situational loneliness. Moreover, the results show that the interaction between anthropomorphism and situational loneliness has an impact on the willingness to pay a higher product price. The research findings can be used for future applications of AI-driven chatbots where there is a need to provide personalized and data-driven product recommendations.

Keeping Promises: A Process Study of Escalating Commitment Leading to Organizational Change Collapse

In the present research, we employ a theoretical lens—the one of escalation of commitment to a failing course of action that so far is not sufficiently reflected in the academic literature for analyzing large-scale organizational change processes. In doing so, we highlight aspects of complex change processes that are less visible than other theoretical perspectives that use “snapshots” of change. Using 3-year longitudinal process data, we present an in-depth empirical study of the failed attempt at strategic reorientation known as corporatization of the Norwegian Air Traffic Control organization—Avinor. Underway, we identified an important new variable that emerged as a significant determinant for persistence and escalating commitment that eventually led to the total collapse of the strategic change project known as Take-Off 05.

Collaborative process design

Purpose

Over the past two decades, technological advances have spurred companies to design collaborative processes. Yet most such efforts are difficult to implement, with only a few resulting in sustained competitive advantages. The purpose of this paper is to leverage the tenets of socio-technical theory to examine how collaborative process design may lead to improved collaborative performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors employ a multi-method – survey and interview – approach to examine the roles of technical and social initiatives in mitigating resistors to collaborative performance, and identify both the short-term appeals of technology investments and long-term social resistors that inhibit additional performance gains.

Findings

While initial investments in information technology yield alluring gains, performance benefits diminish as social resistors create limiting conditions. The dynamic capability for firms to recognize and respond to the dual and integrative nature of technical and social systems is required for firms to overcome powerful limiting conditions and change resistors through collaborative process design in order to cultivate new value-creation processes.

Originality/value

This study is the first in the discipline to utilize socio-technical systems theory to examine an issue in supply chain process redesign. The multi-method approach elaborates the difficulty inherent in cultivating new value-creation processes. The results collectively illustrate a need for recognizing the influence of both the reinforcing and limiting processes. Whereas, technical initiatives enable new capabilities, social initiatives remove fear, create vision, and inculcate skills, enabling technology adoption and process change.