Designing for reintermediation in the brick-and-mortar world: Towards the travel agency of the future

The Internet and electronic marketplaces have profoundly transformed the travel services industry and challenged the traditional value proposition of travel agencies: What is the reason for their existence if information is abundantly available and transactions can be flexibly conducted in direct buyer-seller interactions on the Internet? Traditional travel agencies are struggling to develop new value propositions which differentiate them against the Internet competition, largely based on expanding their reach through online subsidiaries. We present a reintermediation approach based on a novel way of IT-enabled travel advisory which integrates the advantages of interactive technologies and Internet channels with the advantages of direct customer interaction in the physical agency setting. In particular, we propose a reintermediation framework based on the integration of kernel theories from information seeking behavior, interactive value creation, relationship marketing and the design of hedonic information systems. We argue that physically collocated travel advisory services can create a significant added value, if they succeed in uncovering customers' hidden needs, heightening trust and relationship building in the advisory process and creating a better user experience. Following the design science methodology we validate the proposed framework through the design, implementation and evaluation of a proof-of-concept prototype in a field experiment in a real-world travel agenc

INVOLVEMENT PRACTICES IN PERSUASIVE SERVICE ENCOUNTERS: THE CASE OF HOME SECURITY ADVICE

Advisors providing non-commercial service encounters are neither trained nor explicitly incentivized to persuade the advisee. However, a whole range of encounters may benefit from enhanced persuasiveness to prevent the advisee from taking counterproductive decisions. Persuasion literature from the field of social psychology points to the persuadee’s involvement as a central factor of persuasive effect. Nevertheless, little is known on how persuader addresses persuadee’s involvement and how those efforts can be supported by means of modern technology, especially in the non-commercial service encounters. Based on a detailed analysis of experimental service encounters and supported by the in situ studies of real advisory sessions, this study identifies a set of involvement practices, i.e., conversational practices that advisors engage in when trying to improve the advisee’s involvement and illustrates how these practices can be afforded with modern multimedia technology. Thereby, the manuscript proposes to bridge the notions of involvement from the conversation studies and from the persuasion literature. By pointing to the influence of IT on persuasive behaviour in service encounters, it brings together the concept of persuasive technology and service support as a subfield of IS. The manuscript offers novel perspective for framing the conversations and the practices in service encounters

The development and test of a relationship model on system use, job learning, and impact

Swiss banks have returned to their roots and pay an increasing amount of attention to differentiating themselves from others through good financial advisory services. This has led to a loudly publicized standardization of IT-advisory processes, but not to an increasing use of supporting IT tools. This paper uses interviews with Swiss advisors, sales managers and IT managers, as well as focus groups of users and a survey with users to identify reasons for non-usage. The analysis is based on a framework combining principal-agent theory, IT-business alignment, technology acceptance and information behaviour. We provide evidence that the key problem explanation is the incentive system of the advisors and that poor usability of the software and lack of engagement by sales managers also contribute to the non-usage of most tool

How Fair Is IS Research?

While both information systems and machine learning are not neutral, the identification of discrimination is more difficult if a system learns from data and discrimination can be introduced at several stages. Therefore, this article investigates if IS Research has taken up with this topic. A literature analysis is conducted and its discussion shows that technology, organization, and human aspects have to be considered, making it a topic not only for data scientist or computer scientist, but for information systems researchers as well

Facilitating Informed Decision-Making in Financial Service Encounters

While advice-giving encounters form an integral part of banks’ services, clients often buy inappropriate products and face financial consequences. Legislators have started to put banks under pressure to ensure that clients are properly educated. However, the literature describes barriers due to which client education is doomed to fail applying current advice-giving practices. Practicable alternatives to the predominant perfect agent style of advice-giving are dismissed, mainly with the argument of client-side cognitive limitations. This paper challenges this assumption by suggesting a decision-making process that seamlessly integrates educational interventions, thus supporting informed client decision-making. In the spirit of design science research, the authors take a fresh look at the problems of client education in cooperation with a large Swiss retail bank to derive generalizable requirements, and design a novel IT-supported advice-giving process. An evaluation demonstrates the design’s utility in significantly improving client learning, compared to traditional service encounters. This research extends the current discourse on service encounter design, and seeks to help practitioners to design the financial service encounters of tomorrow

Enabling Workers to Enter Industry 4.0: A Layered Mobile Learning Architecture

Manufacturing companies have to meet a lot of challenges in continuing training for employees. Especially on the way towards industry 4.0 the workforce needs to be able to handle fast changing environments and ever-changing working contexts. Furthermore, they have to be familiar with constantly new technologies (e.g. complex user interfaces, mobile devices) that are introduced during the process of company development. Due to this, working people are facing a lifelong learning process and need to evolve to knowledge workers. To fulfill these requirements new concepts are necessary for human resources development directly at the workplace and therefore adequate artifact designs. In this paper we design a layered architecture for mobile learning at the workplace. This layered approach offers the possibility to educate employees with different qualifications and skills using an integrated solution. Further, we propose to implement appropriate components at each layer to support different kinds of learning

Towards the Socio-Algorithmic Construction of Fairness: The Case of Automatic Price-Surging in Ride-Hailing

Algorithms take decisions that affect humans, and have been shown to perpetuate biases and discrimination. Decisions by algorithms are subject to different interpretations. Algorithms’ behaviors are basis for the construal of moral assessment and standards. Yet we lack an understanding of how algorithms impact on social construction processes, and vice versa. Without such understanding, social construction processes may be disrupted and, eventually, may impede moral progress in society. We analyze the public discourse that emerged after a significant (five-fold) price-surge following the Brooklyn Subway Shooting on April 12 2022, in New York City. There was much controversy around the two ride-hailing firms’ algorithms’ decisions. The discussions evolved around various notions of fairness and the algorithms’ decisions’ justifiability. Our results indicate that algorithms, even if not explicitly addressed in the discourse, strongly impact on constructing fairness assessments and notions. They initiate the exchange, form people’s expectations, evoke people’s solidarity with specific groups, and are a vehicle for moral crusading. However, they are also subject to adjustments based on social forces. We claim that the process of constructing notions of fairness is no longer just social; it has become a socio-algorithmic process. We propose a theory of socio-algorithmic construction as a mechanism for establishing notions of fairness and other ethical constructs

Going Paperless with Electronic Data Safes: Information Ecology Fit and Challenges

In private households, once received paper-based documents are increasingly substituted by electronic documents. In order to “get organized”, an individual nowadays needs to oversee a plethora of digital and physical information items stored at various locations. As a technological solution, cloud-based storage services such as an Electronic Data Safe (EDS) emerge as a home for all digital valuables. In this paper, we analyze how such an EDS fits into an individual’s information ecology by drawing upon the results of a qualitative interview study with 39 users of three different EDS services. We develop a typology of the content that is kept safe in an EDS, reflect upon the motivations and upon an EDS’s role with respect to other cloud-based storage services individuals are using. The challenges of maintaining a digital, personal archive are depicted and “data value zones” are introduced as a sensitizing concept to reflect upon problematic areas

HOW TO DIMINISH ADVICE DISCOUNTING WITH MOBILE MULTIMEDIA INTERVENTIONS

The phenomenon of advice discounting in advice taking and the lack of motivational force in advice giving often hamper follow-up actions which are important to satisfy both advice seekers’ and advi-sors’ demands. This paper strives to diminish the well-known problem of advice discounting by invest-ing in a design study and creating a new information system supporting advisors. The prototype is mobile and provides multimedia interventions. These enable the advisors to activate advice takers on an emotional level with wow-factor episodes which strengthen advisors’ arguments. This study is af-fected by and evaluated in the practical field of home security advice. The evaluation points to the conclusion that the motivation to utilize given advice is higher in the IS-supported advisory service compared to the conventional approach of plain speech-based advice giving. The paper contributes general design implications facing advice discounting in mobile and collaborative advisory services. Furthermore, it supports home security provider in designing their mobile service encounter to in-crease the advice implementation

Understanding Privacy Disclosure in the Online Market for Lemons: Insights and Requirements for Platform Providers

Future used car markets may use personal data to reduce information asymmetries between car sellers and buyers, e. g. on past driving behavior. Reducing information asymmetries is attractive for used car platforms as they can move from pure information provision to orchestrating transactions. However, car sellers and buyers have to agree to sharing personal data. What kind of data is interesting for them? Under what circumstances are they willing to share this data? What should a platform do to support data sharing? We explore those research questions as part of the Cardossier project by conducting experiments with the Car-Market Game, simulating a future car market. The results indicate that there is no market for pure personal data (e. g. photographs of sellers), but there is a market for car usage data. From future used car platforms the participants expect disclosure control and disclosure transparency in an environment free of interpersonal trust