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- All Subjects: Marketing
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- All Subjects: Imperative programming
- Genre: Academic theses
- Status: Published
Description
Using a combination of laboratory experiments, field experiments, and secondary data, this dissertation examines how cross-cultural differences (e.g., thinking style and self-construal) influence the way consumers cope with self-discrepancies (essay 1) and willingness to digitally enhance their appearance (essay 2). The first essay investigates when and why consumers cope with a self-discrepancy by purchasing products in domains that are important to their self-worth, but unrelated to the self-discrepancy (i.e., fluid compensation). I identify thinking style as an important factor that influences fluid compensation and demonstrate that people with a temporarily activated or dispositional holistic thinking style are more likely to engage in fluid compensation than people with an analytic thinking style. This phenomenon occurs because, by perceiving parts as more functionally related to a larger whole, holistic (vs. analytic) thinkers are more likely to view fluid compensation as instrumental to enhancing global self-worth. Holistic (vs. analytic) thinkers’ greater propensity to engage in fluid compensation, in turn, better enables them to restore their global self-worth. The second essay examines how cultural differences in self-construal impact consumers’ willingness to engage in digital beauty work (e.g., use photo-editing apps to make oneself look better in an image). Building on prior research that shows interdependents see more overlap between themselves and others, I propose and demonstrate that consumers with an interdependent (vs. independent) self-construal also see greater overlap between their own different selves (beautified and true self). More importantly, this effect only occurs when they see both the actual self and the beautified self, side-by-side (e.g., joint presentation mode), but not when consumers see only the beautified self in isolation (e.g., separate presentation mode). This heightened overlap between the beautified self and the true self, in turn, increases willingness to digitally enhance appearance. Together, this dissertation contributes to the understanding of how cultural values shape consumers’ views of the self and consumption preferences to satisfy their goals and motivations, and it helps marketers and policy-makers design interventions to increase consumer well-being and to achieve more success in global market.
ContributorsWang, Qin (Author) / Mandel, Naomi (Thesis advisor) / Lisjak, Monika (Thesis advisor) / Samper, Adriana (Committee member) / Morales, Andrea C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This dissertation explores how emergent technologies influence consumer experience and market behavior. The first chapter of the dissertation, “The Effect of Implementing Chatbot Customer Service on Stock Returns: An Event Study Analysis,” employs the event study method to examine how the implementation of customer service chatbots impacts firm value. I find that investors respond positively to chatbot implementation and that Business-to-Business (B2B) companies have significantly more to gain from this service innovation compared to Business-to-Consumer (B2C) companies. However, anthropomorphizing chatbots attenuates this positive financial impact for B2B companies, suggesting differences in expectations and preferences of B2C and B2B customers. A survey of investors and a consumer experiment provide additional evidence for these relationships. While prior research suggests that Artificial Intelligence (AI) implementation may have a negative impact on firm value, using the example of AI chatbots, this research provides the first evidence that investors respond favorably to a customer-centric application of AI. In addition, it broadens the predominant consumer-focused lens of the marketing literature on AI to include B2B customer and investor perspectives. Further, while marketing research has primarily viewed anthropomorphism as a categorical variable, I propose an anthropomorphism index that offers a more nuanced approach to examining the anthropomorphism of AI technology.In the second chapter, “Understanding Antagonistic Consumer Behavior Toward Humanlike Robots in the Marketplace,” I examine consumer antagonism toward service robots and contribute theoretically and substantively to the emerging marketing literature on AI. Using carefully designed experiments, I demonstrate that consumers tend to dehumanize and, consequently, behave antagonistically toward humanoid (vs. non-humanoid) service robots. While prior research shows that people avoid humanoid robots, this research is the first to show that consumers dehumanize and subsequently engage in anti-normative, negative approach behavior when such robots are deployed in customer-facing service roles. Furthermore, this research contributes to the dehumanization literature by demonstrating that dehumanization is a two-step process when applied to service technology. Importantly, the findings help reconcile the contradiction between the literature on anthropomorphism and the uncanny valley hypothesis by demonstrating that consumers receive humanoid (vs. non-humanoid) robots more positively when the effect of dehumanization is mitigated.
ContributorsFotheringham, Darima (Author) / Wiles, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Lisjak, Monika (Thesis advisor) / Ostrom, Amy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Graph theory is a critical component of computer science and software engineering, with algorithms concerning graph traversal and comprehension powering much of the largest problems in both industry and research. Engineers and researchers often have an accurate view of their target graph, however they struggle to implement a correct, and efficient, search over that graph.
To facilitate rapid, correct, efficient, and intuitive development of graph based solutions we propose a new programming language construct - the search statement. Given a supra-root node, a procedure which determines the children of a given parent node, and optional definitions of the fail-fast acceptance or rejection of a solution, the search statement can conduct a search over any graph or network. Structurally, this statement is modelled after the common switch statement and is put into a largely imperative/procedural context to allow for immediate and intuitive development by most programmers. The Go programming language has been used as a foundation and proof-of-concept of the search statement. A Go compiler is provided which implements this construct.
To facilitate rapid, correct, efficient, and intuitive development of graph based solutions we propose a new programming language construct - the search statement. Given a supra-root node, a procedure which determines the children of a given parent node, and optional definitions of the fail-fast acceptance or rejection of a solution, the search statement can conduct a search over any graph or network. Structurally, this statement is modelled after the common switch statement and is put into a largely imperative/procedural context to allow for immediate and intuitive development by most programmers. The Go programming language has been used as a foundation and proof-of-concept of the search statement. A Go compiler is provided which implements this construct.
ContributorsHenderson, Christopher (Author) / Bansal, Ajay (Thesis advisor) / Lindquist, Timothy (Committee member) / Acuna, Ruben (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018