One of the most prominent and potentially transformative trends in society today is machines becoming more human-like, driven by progress in artificial intelligence. How this trend will impact individuals, private and public organizations, and society as a whole is still unknown, and depends largely on how individual consumers choose to adopt and use these technologies. This dissertation focuses on understanding how consumers perceive, adopt, and use technologies that blur the line between human and machine, with two primary goals. First, I build on psychological and philosophical theories of mind perception, anthropomorphism, and dehumanization, and on management research into technology adoption, in order to develop a theoretical understanding of the forces that shape consumer adoption of these technologies. Second, I develop practical marketing interventions that can be used to influence patterns of adoption according to the desired outcome. This dissertation is organized as follows. Essay 1 develops a conceptual framework for understanding what AI is, what it can do, and what are some of the key antecedents and consequences of its’ adoption. The subsequent two Essays test various parts of this framework. Essay 2 explores consumers’ willingness to use algorithms to perform tasks normally done by humans, focusing specifically on how the nature of the task for which algorithms are used and the human-likeness of the algorithm itself impact consumers’ use of the algorithm. Essay 3 focuses on the use of social robots in consumption contexts, specifically addressing the role of robots’ physical and mental human-likeness in shaping consumers’ comfort with and perceived usefulness of such robots. Together, these three Essays offer an empirically supported conceptual structure ¬for marketing researchers and practitioners to understand artificial intelligence and influence the processes through which consumers perceive and adopt it. Artificial intelligence has the potential to create enormous value for consumers, firms, and society, but also poses many profound challenges and risks. A better understanding of how this transformative technology is perceived and used can potentially help to maximize its potential value and minimize its risks.

No description available.

This thesis argues for the need for a more comprehensive discussion of biodiversity use in relation to enhancing benefits of this use for biodiverse countries and promoting more equitable sharing of these benefits. The findings from this doctoral research reveal that biodiversity-based innovation is a social shaping process that has resulted in large benefits. The cumulative capability to use species from biodiversity gives meanings that contribute to the species shaping process, with organisations and institutional changes providing direction and increasing the rate of the shaping process. In showing how innovation takes place and how the appropriation of benefits occurs, this research contributes to studies on science policy and innovation in relation, especially, to biodiversity-based innovation. The thesis introduces the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol as representing change to the governance of biodiversity. The theoretical approach draws on evolutionary and institutional economics, both of which inform and extend a question that is central in the sociology of technology: That is how are technology (innovation understood as an output) and social practices shaped collectively? Three cases are used to trace what occurs in the shaping process of species from biodiversity: (i) The Jersey cow is a breed within the species Bos Taurus or modern taurine cattle. The isolated character of Jersey delimited the scope of the breed at a point in time when it was being bred locally and allow us to identify its shaping as a ‘technology', and the broader diffusion of its use. The Jersey cow is used to introduce the theoretical framework and the analysis. (ii) Maca, originally from Peru, is a root crop with nutritional and, allegedly, fertility enhancing properties. It was domesticated in Peru and only a few world regions have conditions favouring its production. Maca is commercialised as flour and used as a raw material. (iii) Quinua has great potential as a staple food crop. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) declared 2013 to be the International Year of Quinoa on the basis of its unique and nutritious character. Three Andean countries (Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru) report exports of quinua grain, although dozens of countries around the world are engaged in performing agronomic testing for its commercial production. A comparative analysis of the three cases helps to identify the science and technology policy issues related to implementation of the CBD and the Nagoya Protocol. The case studies demonstrate the innovation process of species from biodiversity. Benefits arise from the diffusion of the use of the species (via commercialisation), which accrued to individuals or groups. The characterisation of the innovation process highlights how the voices and agency of actors and organisations affected the shaping process. The governance over the goods that emerged from the use of the species defined the appropriation of benefits.

Research and technological development processes increasingly entail inter-organisational collaboration for the access and integration of external complementary knowledge, especially within emergent technological innovation systems and small developing countries. Collaborative efforts aggregate capabilities of individual actors into system-level innovation capacity, fostering technological and innovation outcomes from both individual organisations and the technological system as a whole. Significant understanding of these interactive processes has been achieved by previous research on innovation systems, inter-organisational collaboration and networks, and studies of interdisciplinary scientific research. Nevertheless, further knowledge is required on how and why organisations may differ in their ability to collaboratively exploit potential complementarities. Consequently, this thesis examines institutional and organisational factors that influence the actual extent of knowledge integration achieved by public research organisations through collaborative research endeavours, within the agri-biotechnology innovation system in Uruguay. The research followed a mixed empirical method. Exploratory interviews with members of public R&D groups and firms were conducted in order to reach a preliminary understanding of the main forces affecting collaboration and knowledge integration. Quantitative indicators of the degree of knowledge-integration achieved by R&D groups' collaborative links were designed and computed using data gathered through a survey of R&D group members. Indicators were also developed to statistically assess how the extent of collaborative knowledge-integration achieved by an R&D group is influenced by system-level incentive institutions, by the absorptive and relational capacities of the group, and by the compliance of the group with local scientific assessment and reward mechanisms. This thesis makes various theoretical contributions and draws relevant policy implications. The results show that members of R&D groups may exert differing levels of influence on knowledge-integration. Specifically, postgraduate students were found to play a relevant bridging role, enhancing the ability of the group to access knowledge from complementary disciplines. The study also found consistent evidence of a negative relation between an R&D group's compliance with local scientific incentives, and the group's ability to collaboratively integrate complementary knowledge-assets. Therefore, formal incentive institutions are presumably affecting the exploitation of potential synergies among local knowledge resources and hence the learning and innovation capabilities and the cohesion of the entire agri-biotechnology innovation system. As a methodological contribution, this thesis develops novel indicators to assess the degree of inter-organisational complementarity that go beyond those used in previous research.

The purpose of this study was to delve into the factors that might influence someone to adopt a health app and to ultimately adopt a healthy behavior. This research extended the use of diffusion of innovations theory to health-related mobile apps. In knowing more about the way that innovation attributes are used in real-world health app descriptions and in how those descriptions might influence the adoption decisions, not just of the health app but of the related health behavior, we might be able to impact the way that professionals communicate the need for healthy behaviors to people. This study used a content analysis of the top-rated mobile health app product descriptions and user reviews to design experimental stimuli that mirrored real-world app description pages. The experiment manipulated the use of statements of innovation attributes and examined the way participants described their likelihood to adopt an app and the associated healthy behaviors. The study found that diffusion of innovation attributes did not influence participants’ likelihood to adopt a health app or healthy behaviors, but those participants who reported tracking their own health, physical activity, and diet were more likely to download a health app and to perform the associated healthy behaviors. The study has implications for the qualities health educators or healthcare professionals attempt to educate and persuade people about their health.

The Theory of Disruptive Technologies put forward by Clayton Christensen in 1997 has attracted significant attention. This case study tests the hypothesis that the theory is generalisable to new situations. It uses datasource triangulation by using document, statistical and interview analyses (including investigator triangulation) to apply the Theory to Australian Digital Theses Program (ADT) and finds that the Program may indeed be a disruptive technology in relation to academic libraries, universities and to the publishing industry. However, it has greater potential to be disruptive in the latter, and to be a sustaining technology, as defined by the Theory, in relation to libraries and universities.

This multi-method study investigated the relationship between the dimensions of organizational learning, organizational innovation and organizational climate in the Australian Hotel Industry. The hotel industry was chosen as it is highly labour intensive and serves as a suitable environment to test the three dependent variables that are closely employee related. Data was collected from a total population sample of 800 respondents, employed in 50 hotels, which included 45 from a large International Brewery Group located in Melbourne and 5 independent hotels. The response rate was 75%. Organizational learning was measured using, the 34-item Organizational Learning Profile (OLP) scale (Pace et al, 1997) containing the four dimensions of OL (Achievement Mindset, Learning Practices, Information Sharing Patterns, and Inquiry Climate) was used. Organizational Innovation was measured using the 24- item Workplace Innovation Scale (WIS) (McMurray and Dorai, 2002) containing the four dimensions of Innovation (Organizational Innovation, Innovation Climate, Team Innovation and Individual Innovation). Organizational Climate (OC) was measured using the 40 item Koys and DeCotiis (1996) scale containing the eight dimensions of support, autonomy, pressure, cohesion, recognition, fairness, innovation and trust. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS (v.10) and qualitative data was analyzed using theme-category analysis. This study contributes to the management literature and extends the existing knowledge on learning, innovation and climate. Specifically the results show that the dimensions of organizational learning, innovation and climate are predictors of one another and it establishes a significant relationship between the dimensions of learning, innovation and climate. Furthermore, this study found that Workplace Survey is a valid and reliable scale to measure learning, innovation and climate. The recommendations made in this study will help management understand the importance of learning and innovation in the workplace. In turn, this will improve the organizational climate by facilitating learning and innovation among hotel employees.

This thesis analyses the material and ideological dimensions of the knowledge economy with particular reference to New Zealand. The emergence of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of transnational capitalism precipitates the co modification of information, communication and knowledge. This process is obscured by the ideological construction of techno-futurism. Techno-futurism is a combination of technological determinism and futurism that appropriates notions of progress. In the pages which follow, historical analyses of this ideology inform the subsequent critique of knowledge economy discourse. In New Zealand knowledge economy discourse contained techno-futurist elements and deflected attention from the global absorption of national capitalism. In this context the Catching the Knowledge Wave Conference (KWC), held in Auckland in the first days of August 2001, is examined. I argue that the instigators and organisers of the conference were enmeshed within the business culture of finance capital and ICTs. Textual analysis of keynote addresses reveals the ideological dimensions to knowledge wave and knowledge economy talk. These dimensions are; entrepreneurialism, knowledge as (economic) progress, and globalism.

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. School of Technology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-91).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--State University of New York at Albany, 2003. / Chairperson: Alvin Magid. Includes bibliographical references.