Follow Me If You Want to Live - Understanding the Influence of Human-Like Design on Users’ Perception and Intention to Comply with COVID-19 Education Chatbots

Following recommendations and complying with behavioral attitudes is one major key in overcoming global pandemics, such as COVID-19. As the World Health Organization (WHO) highlights, there is an increased need to follow hygiene standards to prevent infections and in reducing the risk of infections transmissions (World-Health-Organization, 2021). This urgent need offers new use cases of digital services, such as conversational agents that educate and inform individuals about relevant counter measurements. Specifically, due to the increased fatigue in the population in the context of COVID-19, (Franzen and Wöhner, 2021), CAs can play a vital role in supporting and attaining user’s behavior. We conducted an experiment (n=116) to analyze the effect of a human-like-design CA on the intention to comply. Our results show a significant impact of a human-like design on the perception of humanness, source credibility, and trust, which are all (directly or indirectly) drivers of the intention to comply

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

The political economy of FDI in Thailand and its implications for sustainable economic development

This thesis analyses the determinants and consequences of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Thailand, with particular emphasis on reviewing the Thai government’s FDI policies, and these policies’ effectiveness for enabling the country’s sustainable development. Past research has indicated that, despite developing countries’ various attempts to improve their economic growth and increase their standard of living via internationalisation, many of these attempts have proven unsuccessful. In the case of Thailand, there is debate regarding how the government can influence and regulate FDI in a manner that is most beneficial to the country’s long-term growth and development. It has long been recognised that Thailand’s economic policies are determined in a political environment that is driven mainly by individuals’ and groups’ personal interest. Thus, research on the political process of policy formation is essential to predict future policy directions. This thesis takes a more concentrated approach by examining the effects of FDI on Thailand’s economic growth in the context of the political economy. The main areas examined are: (i) whether FDI has had a positive effect on the Thai economy; (ii) in which sector FDI has been most productive; (iii) whether the Thai government has been successful in achieving improved economic growth through implementing its FDI policies; and (4) if not, which areas have reported failure, what possible alternative policies exist, and what the expectations are for Thailand’s future. In assessing Thailand’s performance, this study found that the contribution of FDI to gross domestic product and employment growth varies across sectors. Generally, there is room for improvement in all sectors, which can be achieved by addressing the structural weaknesses in Thailand’s financial system and improving the country’s infrastructure, education and health. Appropriate measures will improve human capital, increase absorptive capacity, and thereby enhance the overall spillover effects of FDI