Variable speed limits (VSL) are used more commonly around the globe lately. Although on a macroscopic level positive effects of VSLs have been reported, the caveat is that the impact of VSLs is very sensitive to the level of driver compliance. Thus far it is unknown whether all individual drivers are actually able to notice when a speed limit changes into another speed limit; a prerequisite for purposeful speed limit compliance in the first place. To simulate regular driving conditions, twenty-four participants were familiarised with a particular route by driving the same route in a driving simulator nineteen times on five separate days. Part of the route consisted of a motorway where VSL signs were regularly displayed above every driving lane. At drive nineteen, speed limits changed from 80 km/h to 100 km/h on four out of eight consecutive signs. After passing all signs, one expects 6.25% of the participants still to be unaware that the speed limit had increased (based on chance), while the results showed most participants had failed to notice the speed limit change (58.3%). Instead, they saw what they expected to see: a speed limit of 80 km/h. If the speed change had been vice versa, in other words from 100 km/h to 80 km/h, this would immediately result in speed offences, though not deliberately at all.

Ever since the introduction of sound in film, sound effects have played a big part in the experience of the film audience. Acousmatic sound effects are diegetic sounds that lack a visual source on screen, and they are frequently used in horror films. This research explores the relationship between familiarity with sound effects and the emotional response in the audience. An experiment was conducted where two test groups watched an excerpt from a horror film where acousmatic sounds were a big part of the soundtrack. One of the test groups watched a version where there were reoccurring familiar acousmatic sounds, and the other group watched a version with random un-familiar acousmatic sounds. Data was collected through self-report and physiological measurements. The results suggest that there is a dissonance between the conscious and unconscious emotional experience of suspense and fear. The physiological measurements indicate a higher emotional arousal in the group that watched the unfamiliar version of the stimuli, while the self-report propose a stronger conscious build-up of suspense leading to a stronger experience of fear in the group watching the familiar version. Further research directions based on the result of this research are presented.

Context: In recent years, software development teams have been adopting agile methodologies like Scrum to enhance productivity and collaboration. However, with the outbreak of COVID-19, remote working conditions have become the new norm. This shift has posed a challenge for software development teams as they struggle to maintain the same level of productivity and collaboration while working remotely. Agile methodologies like Scrum, which emphasize teamwork, communication, and collaboration, are particularly affected by remote work conditions. One critical factor that affects agile teams’ effectiveness is team familiarity, which is the degree of mutual understanding among team members. High team familiarity can lead to better communication, coordination, and performance. Objectives: The main aim of this research is to investigate the effects of geographical dispersion on team familiarity in Scrum teams due to pandemic restrictions. The research aims to identify the facets that contribute to the concept of team familiarity, investigate how geographical dispersion has affected team familiarity during the pandemic, and explore how Scrum practices have been impacted by changes in team familiarity under remote working conditions. Methods: The research employed a literature review as a research method and interviews as a data collection technique. The first phase involved conducting a comprehensive literature review by analyzing various research papers using the forward snowballing technique to identify the facets contributing to the concept of team familiarity. In the second phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 software professionals from various software companies who had experience working in Scrum teams during the pandemic. The interview questions focused on how remote working conditions had affected team familiarity and Scrum practices. The data collected during the interviews were analyzed using a deductive thematic analysis, which guided the identification of common patterns and themes. Results: From the literature review, nine facets of team familiarity were identified: Shared work experience, Communication, Team coordination, Team cohesion, Interpersonal knowledge, Shared knowledge, Trust, Team collaboration, and Member diversity. The interview data revealed that the geographical dispersion did pose a few challenges due to the remote work setup and had negatively affected team familiarity. The correlation between team familiarity facets and scrum practices was also explored, along with how they were affected due to geographical dispersion. However, the interviewees suggested several strategies to mitigate the challenges posed by geographical dispersion, such as regular communication and virtual team-building activities.  The results of the literature review were then compared with the interview results to determine the consistency of the findings. The comparison showed that most of the team familiarity facets identified in the literature review were also relevant to the interviewee's experiences. One important theme that emerged from the comparison of the literature review and interview findings is the interdependence of team familiarity facets, where a change in one facet could affect other facets as well. Trust and communication were found to be the most interconnected facets, with links to other team familiarity facets. Conclusions: This research highlights the importance of team familiarity in Scrum teams and the effect of geographical dispersion on team familiarity. The study identified nine facets that contribute to the concept of team familiarity and discussed their interdependence. The research findings suggest that mitigation strategies can help maintain team familiarity under remote work conditions. It was also concluded that maintaining team familiarity is crucial for effective Scrum practices and team performance. Organizations should consider these factors while implementing Scrum practices in geographically dispersed teams. The study recommends further research to explore the impact of team familiarity on other aspects of team performance. Moreover, the scope of the research could be expanded to include other agile methodologies aside from Scrum. Additionally, investigating the role of leadership in promoting team familiarity and collaboration in geographically dispersed Scrum teams is another potential avenue for future research.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in organizational decision-making, optimizing performance, and cutting operational costs. While AI can potentially improve decision-making processes' efficiency and reliability, empirical research highlights that AI adoption may cause people to question the fairness of algorithmic decisions. Thus, the present study investigates whether distributive and procedural fairness perceptions are influenced by human, algorithmic, and hybrid decision-makers in high versus low task complexity conditions. Participants (N = 391) assessed the perceived distributive and procedural fairness in a pre-registered scenario-based experiment. Decision-maker type (human vs. hybrid vs. AI) and task complexity (low vs. high) were manipulated using a 3x2 between-subject design. It was hypothesized that the human decision-maker would be perceived as fairer than the AI, especially in high-complexity conditions. Furthermore, hybrid decision-makers were hypothesized to be perceived as fairer than AI and human decision-makers in low and high-complexity tasks. The results indicate that people tend to perceive human decision-makers as fairer than AI in situations of high complexity. Additionally, in the high-complexity condition, the hybrid decision-maker was perceived as more distributively fair than AI and less procedural fair than the human decision-maker. In low-complexity tasks, the hybrid decision-maker does not show superiority in fairness perception over AI or humans. Hence, the results support the first hypothesis and contradict the second hypothesis that hybrid decision-makers would be perceived as more distributive and procedural fair than AI and human decision-makers. Implications regarding the consequences of implementing AI in organizational decision-making are discussed, and suggestions for further research are included.

Processing fluency is the notion that cognitive processes and their neural corre-lates can function fluently or disfluently (Reber et al., 2004; Winkielman et al., 2003; Shen et al., 2010; Wänke & Hansen, 2015). Fluent or disfluent processing has been conjectured to give rise to a subjective affective experience that is relied on in a variety of judgement tasks, like: evaluation based on perceptive features (Reber et al., 2004); formation of attitudes (Rubin et al., 2010); judging truth (see. Wänke & Hansen, 2015); evaluation and understanding of written content (Song & Schwartz, 2008; Shen et al., 2010;) and more. The aim of this study was to test the possible implicit effects on evaluative judgement of faces following a task of pairing parent to offspring of varying difficulties (by modulating the degree of similarity). This inquiry was spurred by the hypothesis that fluency pose a pro-cessing dynamic that provide experiential information that is used for aesthetic evaluation. The web-based testing used in this case was designed to test if this effect infuses items with a quality of salience that is limited to specific stimuli (face). Or if it is less defined and generalized to influence all subsequent evalua-tion. The testing group of 93 (M = 41y, SD = 13.16) participants (71 females, 17 males, 5 other), was divided into two groups with different fluency conditions. The results (r(93) = .27, p = .009) indicated that positive evaluations is more likely to follow low-fluency conditions (operationalized as pairing time). A possible ex-planation for this observation is that low-fluency conditions probably engage deeper processing of the stimulus, perhaps contributing to a more durable memory trace which provides better recognition and familiarity of the stimulus at the time of the evaluation. Furthermore, it is more than likely that fluency is sensitive to attribution during task shift, which could negate relevance of previous experience or create a contrast effect (i.e. evaluating the stimulus more favourably due to the negative valence of a previous exposure), leaving “only” the facilitating property of exposure-time to the stimuli salient. Another finding is that females on average evaluate faces more positively then males.

The gap between ethical purchase intentions and ethical purchase behaviour is well-documented. Although this gap can be bridged by increasing the level of awareness among consumers with regards to ethical business practices, it was found that consumers between the ages of 19 to 56 years were already aware of ethical organisations and business practices in the South African sports supplement industry. They are however unaware of companies that operate unethically. Several factors such as brand familiarity, price and convenience were found to compete with ethical business behaviour during the purchase decision-making process. It is thus recommended that organisations that incorporate ethical business behaviour at a strategic level should provide ethical products that are competitively priced, convenient to use and from a brand that is familiar / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBA

En turistbroschyr är en bekant produkt som turister kan hämta information ifrån. Men hur upplever användarna interaktionen med ett obekant navigationskoncept som vi kallar DSI i kontexten av att söka turistinformation och vad har DSI för påverkan på användarupplevelsen? Vi har utfört en studie på tio respondenter. Studien inkluderar en observation där respondenterna har fått interagera, med applikationen vi skapade med navigationskonceptet DSI, och utföra ett antal uppgifter. De har även fått utföra ett antal uppgifter på en PDF med samma innehåll men med en annan struktur. Därefter utförde vi metoden Product Reaction Cards och till sist en intervju. Vi kom fram till att det tar tid att lära sig någonting obekant som DSI men när respondenterna väl har lärt sig konceptet så har det haft en positiv påverkan på användarupplevelsen och majoritet ansåg den som användbar i kontexten av att söka turistinformation. / A tourist brochure is a familiar product that tourists collect information from. But how do users experience the interaction with an unfamiliar navigation concept we call DSI in the context of seeking tourist information and what impact does DSI have on the user experience (UX)? We conducted a study of ten respondents. The study includes an observation in which the respondents had to interact with the application we created with the navigation concept DSI, and perform a number of tasks. They also performed a number of tasks on a PDF with the same content but with a different structure. Afterwards we performed the method Product Reaction Cards and lastly an interview. We concluded that it takes time to learn something unfamiliar as DSI but when the respondents have learned the concept it turned out to have a positive impact on the user experience and the majority considered it useful in the context of seeking tourist information.