The problem with which this investigation is concerned is whether or not dogmatism and neuroticism in supervisors of sheltered workshops is related to changes in the self-concept of handicapped employees. The measurements of dogmatism and neuroticism were accomplished through the use of Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale, (form E) and Winne's Neuroticism Scale. Pitt's Tennessee Self Concept Scale was used to measure the self-concept of the handicapped employees.

Co-creation is an emerging phenomenon that occurs when two or more parties work together to create value. Co-creation, which is a key component to service dominant logic, is present in business to business, business to consumer, and consumer to consumer processes. This dissertation will focus on the business to consumer (and consumer to business) co-creation relationship. Much of the current business to consumer co-creation literature is qualitative in nature, with quantitative work just now beginning to emerge. As such, there is still much about the phenomenon of co-creation that is not understood. When looking at co-creation in the context of brand management, even less is known. In today's age of digital interaction where consumers are gaining more power on a daily basis, practitioners and academics should understand the motivations for consumers to engage brands in co-creation and what the outcomes of these co-creation partnerships are. Because of this, the dissertation contains three essays with the purpose of (1) identifying the motivations for co-creation from consumer and brand perspectives, (2) exploring each of these motivators on their individual relationship to the outcome of co-creation, and (3) understanding how the perceived ability to influence a brand impacts the outcomes of co-creation. Essay …

his dissertation advocates that value and its creation are often misunderstood concepts since both lack robust comprehensive conceptual foundations from which to advance rigorous theoretical development and analysis. Furthermore, this dissertation characterized value as the subjective assessment of the total worth of benefits received for the price paid or costs, i.e. money, time, energy, etc. The purpose of this dissertation was to conduct a holistic examination of value through the lens of service-dominant logic (S-D) and several historical economic periods of thought. I conducted a comprehensive S-D literature review in conjunction with a conceptual Boardman Soft Systems Methodology to develop a systemigram that captured the most critical S-D concepts and interrelationships to clarify its purpose and future research opportunities. During this process, value was recategorized and simplified into five primary dimensions, i.e. nature, perspectives, measures, storage, and creation. I employed Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory to illustrate that value at the lowest level of abstraction is the efficient satisfaction of human needs. I also investigated value creation and introduced a comprehensive value creation conceptual framework. Value creation is seen as a continuum of activity of key processes, i.e. value co-production, value in exchange, and value co-creation, and key procedural elements, …

Logistics 4.0 suggests that increased automation can enhance performance, while Logistics 5.0 emphasizes the advantages of a modern workforce that combines humans and emerging technologies. However, the logistics industry needs a deeper understanding of human factors, an area that has been overlooked so far. To bridge this research gap, this dissertation investigated distracted driving behavior among individuals involved in transportation and logistics-based applications. This investigation employed both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Essay 1 focuses on a systematic literature review (SLR) that comprehensively analyzes published research on self-response studies regarding distracted driving behavior. The study identifies five overarching categories of distractions: (a) cell phone-related, (b) technology-related, (c) nontechnology-related, (d) psychological, and (e) personality. The findings underscore the substantial research conducted on self-reported distractions associated with cell phones and technology. Essay 2 employs the protection motivation theory (PMT) to develop hypotheses that predict the engagement of young drivers in texting while driving (TWD). In addition to TWD, the survey also included cognitive failure to examine the indirect effects of PMT on TWD within a mediation framework. The results, obtained through structural equation modeling with 674 respondents aged 18-25, indicate that several factors including response cost, threat vulnerability, cognitive failure, self-efficacy, and …

Previous research on workplace bullying primarily focuses on two main actors – the bully and the victim – while neglecting a third actor: the bystander of the bullying. The prevalence of workplace bullying is increasing across organizations, resulting in more employees becoming subjected to the effects of workplace bullying. Furthermore, witnessing coworker-on-coworker bullying is likely to influence the relationships that the bystander has with the two coworkers involved in the bullying episode. Two areas are proposed to investigate their effect on the coworker bystander: coworker interpersonal justice and personal identification with coworkers. Coworker interpersonal justice involves the perceived fairness between coworkers, while personal identification refers to how these bystanders identify with the specific actors of the bullying event. In addition to work-related outcomes, bystanders are affected at a personal level. That is, being exposed to bullying situations causes these bystanders to alter their anxiety levels and their core affect, with core affect being a precursor to moods and emotions. In addition to the aforementioned outcomes of witnessing a coworker bullying incident, there are also contextual aspects which may influence these relationships. Personal-level factors, such as a bystander's empathy and sense of coherence (i.e., coping mechanisms), may influence the effect of …

Individuals vary in the level of their mental presence during interactions; some individuals are mentally present with others, while others are mired in their thoughts and emotions. Scholarly work on this area is limited, and we know very little about why some individuals display mental presence better than others. In this dissertation, I explore the concept through a series of three essays. In the first essay, I define relational mindfulness as the ability to be mentally present with others. Further, I propose that relational mindfulness has three essential features: others' focus, thought-switching, and emotional acceptance. I operationalize the scale to measure relational mindfulness and investigate its nomological network by correlating it with different constructs. Data from four different samples provide support for the three-factor structure of relational mindfulness and provide support for the relationship of relational mindfulness with related constructs. In the second essay, I explore the relevance of relational mindfulness for front-line employees by investigating the two pathways through which relational mindfulness can reduce fatigue of front-line employees. In the first pathway, I posited that relational mindfulness would decrease the intensity of surface acting of employees when their customers mistreat them, and thus reduce fatigue of employees. In the …

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly transforming business operations and society, as AI capabilities are incorporated into applications ranging from mobile personal assistants to self-driving cars. The potentially disruptive nature of AI calls for an extensive investigation into all aspects of AI-human interactions at individual, group, organizational and market levels. However, there is paucity of academic information systems (IS) research in this area that goes beyond the development and testing of specific narrow AI capabilities. AI represents an important opportunity for organizational and behavioral IS researchers, but also presents challenges associated with the underlying complexity of AI technologies and the diversity of AI applications. Understanding how existing AI research and business practice relate to traditional areas of IS research is an important step towards creating a comprehensive behavioral and organizational AI research agenda. This dissertation seeks to achieve a dual purpose in a series of three essays. Essay 1 seeks to understand the current state of business AI research and practice in business through a quantitative literature review, relate the findings to traditional IS research areas, and identify potentially fruitful research areas for AI-focused IS research. Essays 2 and 3 seek to address specific research questions related to one of such …

Overall my dissertation work tries to capture a holistic view of the various complex interactions that occur in technology development, implementation, adoption and diffusion, in the context of three industries by examining issues that arise due to regulation of technology. Essay 1 focuses on the social media industry, which is in the early stage of the industrial life cycle, and is the foci of government attention for its ill effect on society. Results from the study (N= 647 employed adults in the US) supported hypotheses related to the antecedents and outcomes of platform utilization in the context of the three regulation dimensions. Essay 2 focuses on the automotive industry, which is in the growth stage of the industrial life cycle. Here the focus is on electric vehicles (EV) transitioning from the niches to the main market. Results from the longitudinal study (N = 429) support the moderating role of political activism on innovation capability of manufacturers and presence of ancillary services in the diffusion of different types of electric vehicles in the US market. Essay 3 focuses on the US healthcare industry, reflecting mature stage of industrial life cycle, yet also characterized with high cost and fragmentation of service. The …

In the pre-relationship exploration stage of a business-to-business (B2B) relationship, firms find it difficult to evaluate other parties because of the prevalence of information asymmetry. Firms must make informed decisions, otherwise, they end up in a contentious long-term relationship, which adversely affects the performance of both sides. While majority research on B2B relationships is focused in the post-relationship phase, very little has been done to identify strategies that firms can adopt to signal their firm characteristics in the pre-relationship phase. This is important, as such signals can help firms make informed purchase decisions by cutting through the information asymmetry. Also, sending the right signals can help firms extract a price premium from their prospective partners, contributing positively to their bottom line. Therefore, this dissertation consists of three essays with the objective to (i) identify positioning strategies that sellers can use to signal firm characteristics and test which elements of firm characteristics enable them to extract a price premium (ii) identify branding strategies that sellers can use to signal firm characteristics and test which elements of firm characteristics enable them to extract a price premium (iii) investigate signals that affect firm performance.

This research study involves three essays and examines CRQ-driven decision making from the points of view of the common firm, social-commerce platform provider, and social-commerce echo-system. It addresses CRQ's progression from traditional business-to-consumer (B2C) initiatives to social platform-specific antecedents and to environment-driven factors lying outside the direct control of the platform provider, yet influencing social commerce business decisions, such as user-generated content from peers (e.g. family, friends) and expert authority (e.g. specialists, experts, professional organizations). The research method used statistical, data mining and computer science techniques. The results suggest that social platform providers should take a proactive approach to CRQ, fully leverage their online platform to improve CRQ while paying special attention to security as a potential barrier, and consider the analysis of elements of the echo-system such as the electronic word of mouth (eWOM) to further drive CRQ and determine the level of alignment between customers and experts, suppliers and products featured, that may lead to value-added managerial insights such as the prioritization, promotion and optimization of such relationships.

AI-enabled virtual assistants (AIVAs) have become increasingly popular (e.g., Amazon Alexa, Google Home) and assist consumers with various tasks, including home automation, access to media, entertainment, and shopping. Essay 1 focuses on the outcomes of consumers' lost autonomy after information search using AIVAs versus an online search engine (e.g., Google). Drawing on research in advances in AI technology, I predict that interacting with AIVAs (versus online search engines) will lead to several consumer outcomes: decreased cognitive task performance, word of mouth (WOM) intentions, and the desire for an unrelated subsequent search. I find support for my predictions across five studies, using different tasks to assess performance (verbal and quantitative), after interactions with both real (Amazon Alexa) and fake (Halo) AIVA brands, across different respondent populations (CloudResearch, MTurk, Prolific), thereby enhancing confidence in my findings. In Essay 2, I consider a different consumer outcome - embarrassment, and also a different underlying process variable – social presence. I predict that when consumers engage in information search using an AIVA, they will subsequently experience greater embarrassment when asked about embarrassing products (e.g., condoms, medication for gas, etc.). The increased embarrassment occurs even when the information search is unrelated to the embarrassing products (e.g., …

AI-enabled information systems (AI-enabled IS) offer enhanced utility and efficiency due to their knowledge-based endowments, enabling human agents to assign and receive tasks from AI-enabled IS. As a result, this leads to improved decision-making, ability to manage laborious jobs, and a decrease in human errors. Despite the performance-based endowments and efficiencies, there are significant ethical concerns regarding the use of and delegation to AI-enabled IS, which have been extensively addressed in the literature on the dark side of artificial intelligence (AI). Notable concerns include bias and discrimination, fairness, transparency, privacy, accountability, and autonomy. However, the Information Systems (IS) literature does not have a delegation framework that incorporates ethics in the delegation mechanism. This work seeks to integrate a mixed deontological-teleological ethical system into the delegation mechanism to (and from) AI-enabled IS. To that end, I present a testable model to ethically appraise various AI-enabled IS as well as ethically evaluate delegation to (and from) AI-enabled IS in various settings and situations.

Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) use decentralized, AI-driven decision-making processes to providing material handling capabilities in industrial settings. Essay 1 examines how firms organize and engage to mitigate uncertainty during external technology integration (ETI), using an abductive approach with dyadic customer-supplier data to extend prior ETI models by exploring firm engagement, organizational adaptation, and distinct uncertainty types in AMR ETI projects. Essay 2 applies a grounded theory approach to examine AMR integration, using constant comparison and theoretical sampling to develop core categories explaining how suppliers, customers, and users exchange knowledge impacting AMR integration and project performance. Finally, Essay 3 is a conceptual paper examining the importance of end-user adoption by integrating ETI and technology acceptance model (TAM) frameworks, exploring important relationships between managerial interventions, cognitive constructs, user acceptance, and project success in AMR ETIs. As a whole, these essays contribute to the body of knowledge by extending the breadth and depth of current ETI models, emerging a substantive theory of AMR AIU, and extending TAM by grounding managerial interventions and individual cognitive constructs in an AMR context. Managers can use these frameworks to differentiate AMRs and other autonomous collaborative technology from traditional automation, and develop strategies enabling timely and effective AMR …