Bezençon, Valéry

2024-02-22, Bergram, Kristoffer, Holzer, Adrian, Bezençon, Valéry

Cette thèse explore l'espace de conception des nudges numériques et leurs effets sur les utilisateurs dans trois domaines d'application : la vie privée en ligne, l'utilisation des médias sociaux et les dons de charité en ligne. Après le chapitre d'introduction, une revue systématique de la littérature liée aux études empiriques sur les nudges numériques est menée, révélant le paysage actuel de la recherche. Ensuite, une expérience en ligne et une étude descriptive sur le terrain sont utilisées pour démontrer l'efficacité des nudges numériques dans la sensibilisation à la protection de la vie privée en ligne pour les utilisateurs de certaines plateformes digitales. Le chapitre suivant utilise une expérience de terrain, menée en ligne, pour modifier l'architecture des choix numériques d'une plateforme de médias sociaux populaire. Cette étude évalue les régimes restreints des fils d'actualité et leur impact sur les comportements et les expériences des utilisateurs. Le cinquième chapitre est une expérience factorielle en ligne concernant les dons de charité avec des enjeux monétaires réels. Cette dernière étude examine systématiquement les combinaisons de plusieurs nudges numériques sur les comportements de don en ligne des utilisateurs et leurs attitudes associées en matière de manipulation et d'autonomie. La thèse présente plusieurs contributions liées aux nudges numériques et à l'architecture de choix. L'examen systématique met en lumière plusieurs pistes de recherche ouvertes pour le domaine qui appellent à des recherches futures. L'expérimentation liée à la confidentialité en ligne montre que les nudges numériques pourraient améliorer les interactions des utilisateurs avec les conditions et les politiques de confidentialité, sans toutefois renforcer leur mémorisation de ce qu'ils ont accepté. L'expérience sur le terrain concernant les régimes des fils d'actualité des médias sociaux démontre leur impact sur le temps passé sur la plateforme de médias sociaux, mais ces interventions de conception s'accompagnent d'expériences positives et négatives pour l'utilisateur. L'expérience factorielle en ligne relative aux dons de charité révèle que certaines combinaisons de nudges numériques augmentent les dons, mais ces nudges suscitent également des inquiétudes chez les utilisateurs quant aux menaces pesant sur leur autonomie et leur sentiment de manipulation. Ensemble, les chapitres de la thèse mettent en évidence l'impact complexe des nudges numériques sur le comportement et les attitudes dans plusieurs domaines d'application pertinents. ABSTRACT: This dissertation explores the design space of digital nudges and their effects on users in three application domains: online privacy, social media usage, and online charitable giving. After the introductory chapter, a systematic review of empirical studies on digital nudging is conducted, uncovering the current research landscape. Next, an online experiment and a descriptive field study is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of digital nudges for enhancing the online privacy awareness of users for popular online services. The next chapter uses an online field experiment to alter the digital choice architecture of a popular social media platform. This study evaluates restricted newsfeed diets and their impact on user behaviors and experiences. The fifth chapter is an online factorial experiment concerning charitable giving with real monetary stakes. This last study systematically investigates combinations of several digital nudges on users' online donation behaviors and their associated attitudes around manipulation and autonomy. The dissertation extends several contributions related to digital nudging and choice architecture. The systematic review illuminates several open research avenues for the domain at large that call for future research. The experiment related to online privacy awareness shows that digital nudges could elevate user interactions with terms and privacy policies, although without bolstering users' recollections of what they have agreed to. The field experiment concerning social media newsfeed diets demonstrates their impact regarding time spent on the social media platform, but these design interventions come with both positive and negative user experiences. The online factorial experiment related to charitable giving reveals that some combinations of digital nudges increase donations, but these particular nudges also invoke users' concerns about autonomy threats and an experienced sense of manipulation. Together, the chapters of the dissertation highlight the complex behavioral and attitudinal impact of digital nudges across several relevant application domains.

2023-09-19, Uysal, Ertugrul Behlül, Bezençon, Valéry

Cette thèse explore les dynamiques évolutives des relations humains-technologie à travers trois articles distincts, mettant l'accent sur les implications des technologies intelligentes et des médias sociaux. Le premier article évalue de manière critique l'anthropomorphisme dans l'IA, en explorant sa conceptualisation théorique et son application dans des domaines tels que l'informatique, la robotique, la psychologie et le marketing. Malgré l'utilisation généralisée de caractéristiques humanisées dans les technologies, une compréhension globale de l'anthropomorphisme dans l'IA fait défaut. Pour pallier cela, cet article propose un cadre conceptuel et recommande les meilleures pratiques pour les recherches futures, en particulier dans le domaine du marketing et du comportement du consommateur. Le deuxième article adopte une perspective relationnelle pour analyser les impacts des assistants IA anthropomorphiques, tels qu'Alexa, sur les consommateurs. Les résultats des enquêtes et des expérimentations de terrain révèlent que si l'anthropomorphisme de l'IA peut enrichir l'expérience utilisateur, il peut également susciter des menaces à l'identité humaine, renforcer les préoccupations liées à la confidentialité des données et diminuer le bien-être. Cependant, la recherche dévoile également trois interventions pratiques pour atténuer ces effets indésirables. Le troisième article contemple les changements sociétaux induits par les réseaux sociaux. Il souligne que ces plateformes amplifient les valeurs individuelles de l’accomplissement et de la conformité. Cette affirmation est soutenue par une analyse de données secondaires, d'enquêtes consommateurs approfondies et d'expériences. De manière générale, cette thèse vise à éclairer les complexités des relations consommateur-technologie et leurs implications.
ABSTRACT:
This dissertation explores the evolving dynamics of human-technology relationships, emphasizing the implications of intelligent technologies and social media. The dissertation encompasses three distinct articles. The first article critically evaluates anthropomorphism in AI, exploring its theoretical conceptualization and application across fields like computer science, robotics, psychology, and marketing. Despite the widespread use of humanlike features in technologies, a comprehensive understanding of anthropomorphism in AI is lacking. As a remedy, this piece offers a conceptual framework and recommends best practices for future exploration, particularly in marketing and consumer behavior. The second article adopts a relationship-centric lens to analyze the impacts of anthropomorphic AI assistants, such as Alexa, on consumers. Findings from surveys and field experiments reveal that while AI anthropomorphism can enrich the user experience, it can also elicit identity threats for the users, intensify data privacy concerns, and diminish overall well-being. However, this research also unveils three practical interventions to mitigate these adverse outcomes. The third article contemplates the profound societal shifts induced by social media. It underscores that platforms like these amplify individual values of achievement and conformity. This assertion is backed by an analysis of a large set of secondary data, a consumer survey, and an experiment. In essence, this dissertation seeks to illuminate the complexities of consumer-technology relationships and their implications.

2015, Naray, Olivier, Bezençon, Valéry, Kostecki, Michel

Background
Governments seek to promote – beyond the support for individual businesses – increased exports but also the intangible elements, such as nation branding and country positioning for inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and other economic benefits. In this context, commercial diplomats work as State representatives with diplomatic status conducting trade and business promotion activities between a home and a host country supporting directly individual business firms or promoting the home country as a destination for business. Scientific research in management studies / international business is needed to understand more-in depth effectiveness and the nature of the commercial diplomat’s work.
Objectives content and structure
This thesis addresses the contribution of commercial diplomats to business promotion from a management studies / marketing perspective. Mixed research methods are used (qualitative and quantitative) for data collection within a single study. The central research question is “what is the nature of the work commercial diplomats perform”. The thesis is structured around sub-questions: chapter 2 tackles the trends and the major themes in research over time; chapter 3 researches the determinant factors of performance. Chapter 4 presents an integrative framework to build theory and concepts on how commercial diplomats create value for the nation and individual businesses. Chapter 5 focuses how the business community perceives commercial diplomats. Chapter 6 measures time allocation of commercial diplomats in terms of roles and activity areas and establishes correlations with individual features.
Findings and Implications
The main findings include the gap in the current literature about the commercial diplomat’s managerial role as a unit of analysis and the relatively little use of management studies / marketing approaches (chapter 2). In chapter 3, the thesis identifies three dominant types of commercial diplomats: civil servant, generalist and business promoter, depending largely on factors such as the organisational and institutional arrangements, individual attitudes and backgrounds. Further, an integrative framework for systemic analysis of value creation was designed. Inputs are divided into capabilities i.e. institutional/organisational arrangements and resources such as the commercial diplomat’s individual features such as education and business experience. Roles and activities (promotion of trade, investment, tourism, IP and R&D) and their intensity constitute the process. The commercial diplomat’s managerial roles are brought down to three “FAR” roles: Facilitation i.e. coordination, referral, logistics; advisory i.e. intelligence gathering and analysis, internal communication; and representation i.e. advocacy and external communications. The three roles create value in terms of network/relationship capital, knowledge capital and influence respectively. Inputs may impact on roles performed and their output. From a business firms’ (beneficiaries) perspective (chapter 5), the main advantages to use the commercial diplomat’s service appears to business firms as the central platform, the starting point to promote bilateral business; they are considered credible and neutral; commercial diplomats are found valuable in assisting firms in their first steps in entering foreign markets. In chapter 6, the results regarding time allocation show that commercial diplomats spend more than half of their time on the activity area of trade promotion, which is thus considered core business. Commercial diplomats would want some change in their time allocation particularly on the advisory and representation roles. Commercial diplomats are in majority satisfied with their actual time allocation on the facilitation role along with the intelligence gathering and analysis component (which is part of the advisory role). Individual attitudes matter: a higher hands-on attitude is correlated with more time spent on the facilitation role and the trade promotion activity i.e. the commercial diplomat’s core business. It is concluded that commercial diplomats may have to tackle too many different technical activity areas such as S&T, IP and tourism. Therefore, commercial diplomats run the risk of losing focus of their core business.
Theoretical implications include that the management/marketing approach is promising for research: frameworks and theories are to be further tested. The importance of the human factor/ individual features along with pragmatic institutional and organisational arrangements constitute axis of reflection. Further research should tackle performance and efficiency to be measured as contribution the country’s economy (inward FDI, country image) and business support individually. Practical and managerial implications for senior management in charge of designing, planning and managing commercial diplomacy involve that hybrid, pragmatic institutional and organisational arrangements should be found to fulfil both business and government objectives. Talent management and recruiting need flexibility involving cross-fertilisation with the private sector. Clear delineation is needed between core business and extra activities, we, thus, recommend to reconfirm trade promotion as the core business instead of overwhelming commercial diplomats with other complex technical areas such as research and development. Clear division of labour and coordination in the entire trade promotion architecture are to be enhanced with other government sponsored and private business support organisations.