Corporations and government agencies that use Avatars claim there are substantial benefits for using them in their respective organizations; including 24/7 service availability, quick answers without a phone queue, and improved consistency in the responses provided. “There are also potential cost savings by having an Avatar answering questions compared to using personnel” (Lind and Salomonson, 2006). However, these benefits may not be great enough as the lack of possible human communication may lead to alienation between individuals and organisations. Furthermore, a robot may “miss out” on business opportunities that a human would act on. A robot will not hear and understand nuances in speech, with the risk that a potentially problematic situation may not be adequately resolved, leading to dissatisfaction with products and services delivered. Many companies measure the satisfaction with Avatars by analysing question and answer logs to see if the Avatar appears to give satisfactory answers. Few of these companies have actually asked their customers (e.g. IKEA and SAS until recently) what they really feel about the quality of the answers they receive. User Centered Design, Participatory Design and other methods are the preferred ways of developing such systems, but these do not include all stakeholders. This thesis addresses this exclusion of all stakeholders by applying a co-design research approach for developing avatars for e-Services. Case studies from Mark Municipality, Sweden and Scandinavian Airlines Systems (SAS) are presented in this thesis showing how improvements of service quality aspects with Avatars can be managed by applying a four-step Co-Design research approach. From the first step of Co-Design, through interviews, log analysis and a channel survey, findings show that the failed dialogues with Avatars Eva (SAS) and Elin (Mark) are mainly concerned with five factors: interactivity; dialogue capability; consistency; knowledge; and synonyms. In the second step of carrying out customer workshops, a number of ideal scenarios are suggested for the Avatars to perform better. In the third step, SAS decision makers decided to implement the first three scenarios: Eva’s synonyms, knowledge and consistency. Mark decision makers decided to shut down their Avatar Elin, as they did not believe they had the necessary resources. In the fourth step, another channel survey was carried out for SAS as well as a new log analysis in order to know the impact of the redevelopment of the above three scenarios. An important result of the study was that the company adopted the continuous use of Co-Design as an approach to continuous improvement of the service quality performed by the Avatar Eva. This, for example, led to an increase of 14 percentage points on the users overall satisfaction level. The results also open a new set of questions framing the relation and transformation between Co-Design as a research approach for knowledge creation and Co-Design as a method for innovation and service quality improvements. This thesis also presents an Extended Co-Design Model, which illustrates how Co-Design inspires SAS staff. In addition, the staff of the supplier of the Avatar use it for other functions within and without SAS.

In this supervision strategy some important issues and challanges  are highlighted. The demands put on supervisors have gradually increased through and can lead to a difficult balance act by achieving results and marinating quality as time is a finite resource.

Literature was reviewed and points out information that is already known and relevant to current research.

This study is intended to present findings and conclusions regarding how to successfully coach and supervise PhD students to become ethical, yet confident and effective researchers and lecturers.

This paper aims to examine the factors that influence the willingness to adopt mobile payments and the behavior intention to adopt among Thailand and Sweden's older adults. The developed Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model was adopted as a conceptual framework and a measurement for this study. The five factors include performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, and perceived risk are the independent variables plus the behavior intention to adopt mobile payments as a dependent variable. A quantitative analysis approach has been chosen to obtain data that can be statistically analyzed and compared. A total of 303 of the target respondents in Thailand and Sweden were collected through self-administered questionnaire surveys and analyzed with ADANCO with the partial least square method. The empirical results revealed a significant relationship between most factors with effort expectancy as the only insignificant determinant. For instance, the findings show that social influence has a substantial positive impact on the Thais and a significant impact on Sweden's willingness to adopt mobile payments. Further, perceived risk was found to negatively impact the adoption of mobile payment services in both countries. Still, the fear of losing money was significantly less in Sweden than in Thailand.

In this paper we are presenting some theoretical background, some practical applications and some future scenarios of the use of the human being as a metaphor for design and implementation of e-services/avatars. The main conclusion is that e-services/avatars technology is a powerful concept but without a new profession as knowledge manager in the background, there’s a big risk for failure. We are also presenting a co-design model as a tool for the knowledge manager.

Computers can now carry out tasks, by first learning from being given examples, rather than just doing exactly what they are told, this is often referred to as Machine Learning or AI. This has given almost endless possibilities what these machines can ultimately do. At the same time, it also gives us many threats and things to worry about from a safety, security and ethical point of view and voices are raised that we should control what AI is allowed to do by laws and regulations. By applying a Double loop Co-design approach to science this paper focusses on ChatGPT and researchers experience with effectiveness and ethics related to use o this tool. 3 workshops were conducted with totally 14 participants from 5 continents. Most of the respondents are positive and excited about what Chat GPT and AI can do for us, but they are also worried. The main concerns are that AI will do the creative and fun parts of our work and that it produces false facts. In conclusion, if applying a perspective conscious view of knowledge, AI can inspire human controlled creativity and informed decision making with multi-perspective views of reality. 

The Co-design practices are carried out in different fields of studies. Some of the key advocates of Co-design originate from business. In this study the four steps of Co-design approach is applied. From the first step of Co-design, through interviews, log analysis and a channel survey, findings show that the failed dialogues with Avatar Eva are mainly concerned with five factors: interactivity; dialogue capability; consistency; knowledge; and synonyms. In the second step, carrying out customer workshops, we suggested ten ideal scenarios for Avatar Eva to perform better. In the third step, SAS decision makers decided to implement the first three scenarios: Eva’s synonyms; knowledge and Eva’s consistency. In the fourth step, another channel survey was carried out as well as a new log analysis to know the impact of the redevelopment above three scenarios. An important result of the study was that the company adopted a continuous use of Co-design as an approach of continuous improvement of the service quality performed by the Avatar Eva. It also opens a new set of questions framing the relation and transformation between Co-design as a research approach for knowledge creation and Co-design as a method for innovation and service quality improvements. The study presents an Extended Co-design Model, which illustrates how the Co-design inspires staff to use it for other functions within and without the SAS.

Education at University of Borås is internationally connected to varying degree and form. This report looks at a selection of initiatives in order to explore the past, present and future role of UB internationalization. As a basis for the review, 7 students are interviewed on their international experience in their education – exchange studies and minor field studies (MFS) respectively. The participants stress the role of personal development and career enablement, and perceive their international experience as a distinct, unique element of their education. Possibilities and problems are then identified and related to the current literature on international education, learning and pedagogics. The study lands in a critical discussion on the future development of UB education. Key points of development: To meet the Bologna 20 percent commitment, more efforts need to be made on promoting and enabling internationalization to students, faculty and administrators. Curricular hurdles need to be removed as not to hamper students’ programme progression for going abroad. Teachers’ competency building efforts such as the Teaching and learning in higher education course could benefit from further elements of internationalization.

Since the early part of the new millennium the student application rate has declined in the field of engineering. At the same time the demand from companies has changed to more general degrees that also include international experience. As the world becomes evermore internationalized, companies need employees who can operate in the international market with insights into business culture across the globe with knowledge of sustainable development. All this was an enabler to start to think “out of the box” in order to design a new program. The name ofthe program is ‘International Business Engineering’, a three-year bachelor’s program, 180 ECTS. It includes main subjects such as business, quality, logistics, operations research and management. A mix that provides overall knowledge, catering to the needs in international careers. The program embraces a multi-national and multi-cultural outlook and an education that enables work for a sustainable development, integrated in the global economy. It starts with three semesters in Sweden. The fourth semester is located to Campus Thailand and the last semester gives the students an opportunity to do their thesis work in a number of countries around the world. It commenced in 2009 with 40 students, only half of which were Swedish. All courses are given in English by teachers from Sweden, Thailand, Cuba, South Africa etc. This first year there were 5 000 applicants from 80 countries. The courses often include group work, which also gives the students insights into and knowledge of cultural differences.

Campus Thailand is located at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). A semester there makes the students part of a multi-cultural student environment. AIT has become a leading regional institution and is working towards technological and sustainable development in Asia and the area around the Pacific. CSR Asia is involved at AIT, teaching the students and performing field trips for the students in the South Asian region, including Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and more. Around 70 percent of all students and staff are international withover 40 nationalities represented, giving important international contacts for the future. Cooperation with the Thai-Swedish Chamber of Commerce and its many member companies enables the students to carry out internships with global companies such as SAS, ABB, Volvo, Electrolux and Husqvarna. To date (2013), 70 students have studied in Thailand and over 40 students have performed an internship in companies in Bangkok. From the first batch of students, two are now employed in Bangkok. Currently, the program has ten full-paying fee students.

Dahlberg et al. (2008:165) in their paper proposed a definition for mobile payments as "payments for goods, services, and bills with a mobile device by taking advantage of wireless and other communication technologies", this in order to clarify the concept of mobile payments in particular, that had been subject to different interpretations. In this paper mobile payments are not specifically distinguished from other types of payments that occur online.

After Dahlberg et als review (2008) several other literature reviews about mobile payments have been written. Such as Slade et al. (2013), de Albuquerque et al. (2014) and Dennehy and Sammon (2015) but the literature on relationships between payment provider and customer in an online context is quite scares.

Asymmetrical relationships have been identified in the context of online payment solutions. Providers are turning more to service and debating how to offer better service and how to keep the customer as a customer for longer and how the customer can benefit more from the payment provider. The question of when a customer is converted into an actual customer arises. Some claiming it is when the transaction is completed, others that it is long after payment has been made. In light of this it is hard to see how the role online payment providers can expand but also how it will change when moving into a cashless society. The aim of this paper is to view online payment solutions in light of the relationships payment providers wish to establish and strengthen with their customer.

Data has been generated through two focus groups, an online questionnaire and individual interviews. The in depth focus groups (2 with 5 participants in each) were analyzed and key areas were identified and a questionnaire was developed and distributed to customers of a provider of payment solutions (394 responses were gathered). After the questionnaire was analyzed and conclusions drawn, areas that needed to be further explored in-depth were identified. These areas were further explored through individual interviews. The methodology is characterized by using both qualitative and quantitative approaches to generate data.

The results of the empirical material shows a desire, on the part of the provider of the payment solution to prolong the relationship but also that the customer has no wish to have a relationship with the provider or in some cases, doesn’t even view the provider as a partner/brand/etc. but merely as a means to and end or a facilitator of receiving a good or a service.

This study is a comprehensive empirical framework on customer insight into online payments and issues connected to purchase as well as payment and potential relationships with payment solutions providers.

References

Dahlberg, T., Mallat, N., Ondrus, J., Zmijewska, A., 2008b. Past, present and future of mobile payments research: {A} literature review. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 7 (2), 165–181.

de Albuquerque, J. P., Diniz, E. H., Cernev, A. K., 2014. Mobile payments: A scoping study of the literature and issues for future research. Information Development, 1–27.

Dennehy, D., Sammon, D., 2015. Trends in mobile payments research: A literature review. Journal of Innovation Management 3 (1), 49–61.

Slade, E. L., Williams, M. D., Dwivedi, Y. K., 2013. Mobile payment adoption: Classification and review of the extant literature. The Marketing Review 13 (2), 167–190

special session Information

We are witnessing the beginning of a seismic shift in retail due to digitalization. However, what is meant by digitalization is less clear. Sometimes it is understood as means for automatization and sometimes it is regarded as equal to e-commerce. Sometimes digitalization is considered being both automatization and e-commerce trough new technology. In recent years there has been an increase in Internet and mobile devise usage within the retail sector and e-commerce is growing, encompassing both large and small retailers. Digital tools such as, new applications are developing rapidly in order to search for information about products based on price, health, environmental and ethical considerations, and also to facilitate payments. Also the fixed store settings are changing due to digitalization and at an overall level; digitalization will lead to existing business models being reviewed, challenged and ultimately changed. More specifically, digitalization has consequences for all parts of the physical stores including customer interface, knowledge creation, sustainability performance and logistics. As with all major shifts, digitalization comprises both opportunities and challenges for retail firms and employees, and these needs to be empirically studied and systematically analysed. The Swedish Institute for Innovative Retailing at University of Borås is a research centre with the aim of identifying and analysing emerging trends that digitalization brings for the retail industry.

The present study aims to explore online shopping of groceries across generation cohorts in Sweden during Covid-19, particularly regarding the oldest generation cohort – the Dutifuls (born 1945 or earlier). The data were collected through three large surveys, representative for the Swedish population in the age range 18 – 85. The field period for the first survey was September 17, 2018–January 21, 2019 (N = 1,754). The field period for the second survey was April 14 – June 28, 2020 (N = 2,501). The field period for the third survey was September 20 – December 30, 2021 (N = 1,588). Online grocery shopping in Sweden has increased remarkably since the outbreak of Covid-19, especially among the Dutifuls. However, the same generation cohort decreased their online shopping of groceries in the end of 2021. The findings are discussed in relation to limitations and practical implications. The decline of online shopping of groceries among the Dutifuls needs to be followed-up and explained by further research.

Marketers need new ways of generating campaigns artificially for their marketing activities. Many marketers assume proprietary systems are individualized enough. This article investigates an order of models used to measure how reliably a system can generate campaigns artificially while producing a campaign classification and generation models that are integrated into an intelligent marketing system. The order is between a Classification Model (CM) and a Generation Model (GM). The order also functions as an iterative model improvement process for developing the models by evaluating the models' accuracy distributions. The CM received a mean accuracy of 100%. The GM received 98.9% mean accuracy and a reproducibility score of 96.2%, implying the vast potential for increased resource savings, marketing precision, and less consumer annoyance. The conclusion is that the developed system can reliantly construct campaigns.

This study presents a novel taxonomy of short message service campaigns, for the purpose of building an intelligent marketing system. The main issue of mass marketing is that one size does not fit everybody. In other words, it is challenging to meet different consumer needs. With the help of artificial intelligence, marketers can be supported to overcome some of these challenges. This study uses a mixed methods approach where design science and grounded theory is used to produce a short message service campaign taxonomy for a future intelligent marketing system. Data collection consisted of 386 previously active campaigns used over 33 months to build the taxonomy. An experimental study was conducted to test the effectiveness of the proposed taxonomy. The experiments involved automatic generation of campaign messages. The validity of these campaign messages, and hence the proposed taxonomy, was ascertained by analysing the messages within a business context. The study concludes that the system, intertwined with the taxonomy, performs comparably to a regular campaign. Another proof of concept is that the business context deemed the generated campaign texts to be both semantically and syntactically similar to run them in active campaigns as experiments.

Autogenerated Advertisements (AGAs) can be a concern for consumers if they suspect that Artificial Intelligence (AI) was involved. Consumers may have an opposing stance against AI, leading companies to miss profit opportunities and reputation loss. Hence, companies need ways of managing consumers’ con-cerns. As a part of designing such advices we explore consumers’ discernment ability (DA) of AGAs. A quantitative survey was used to explore consumers’ DA of AGAs. In order to do this, we administered questionnaires to 233 re-spondents. A statistical analysis including Z-tests, of these responses suggests that consumers can hardly pick out AGAs. This indicates that consumers may be guessing and thus do not possess any significant DA of our AGAs.

An increasing number of companies are introducing artificial agents as self-service tools on their websites, often motivated by the need to provide cost-efficient interaction solutions. These agents are designed to help customers and clients to conduct their business on the website. Their role on commercial websites is often to act as online sales/shopping assistants with the hope of replacing some of the interactions between customers and sales staff, thus supplementing or replacing human-to-human communication. However, research on artificial agents and comparisons with human-to-human communication, in particular, is still scarce. The purpose of this article is to explore the similarities and differences in communication between an artificial agent and customers compared with face-to-face communication between human service providers and customers. The method employed is a qualitative comparison of face-to-face human service provision in a travel agency setting and logs of interactions between customers and an artificial agent on an airline company website. The analysis is based on the theory of “activity-based communication analysis” and makes use of a framework of specific communication features provided by this theory. The article demonstrates a number of deficiencies in communication between artificial embodied agents and humans, suggesting that artificial embodied agents still lack many of the desirable communicative aspects of human-to-human service encounters.

Purpose – This paper aims to identify content strategies on social media that influence engagement and to analyze those operations to describe important features for co-creation and trust.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper addresses the question of how social media content can influence engagement by using a mediumsized Swedish company for an empirical case study. This empirical study is based on a participatory action research methodology. By using the company account on LinkedIn, the authors experimented with relational content to understand the effects on customer-perceived value and trust.

Findings – Results reveal that action-oriented messages had a more significant impact on engagement than product-oriented messages and valuebased messages.

Originality/value – This paper builds on the existing literature in two ways: drawing upon business-to-business relationships and perceived value and using recent advances in the use of social networking sites to understand the value of co-creation through a participatory culture.