This seminar will be preceded by a presentation given by Aurélie Bertrand
The content will consist of a short general presentation of SMCS, its skills and its services:
Antoine Juquelier, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations Ingrid Poncin, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations Simon Hazée, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations
Recent emergence of agentic AI is transforming service robots from reactive tools into proactive agents capable of autonomously anticipating and addressing customer needs. These proactive robots can initiate actions without explicit customer commands, reshaping service encounters. While prior research often highlights the benefits of such robots, this paper challenges the predominantly positive narrative by investigating whether and how proactive service robots trigger customer reactance. Across two experiments, we demonstrate that proactive service robots heighten perceptions of intrusiveness, which, in turn, negatively impacts attitude toward the service provider and increases customers’ desire for revenge against the robot. This research provides actionable insights into the nuanced role of agentic AI in service robots, informing managers on how to incorporate proactive robots into the frontline to avoid customer reactance.
Keywords : Proactive service robot, agentic AI, customer reactance, desire for revenge, attitude, intrusiveness
This work is part of the Partenamut-IPM Chair in digital marketing and financial support is gratefully acknowledged.
Nicolas Gerardy, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations Nicolas Kervyn, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations
The brand name constitutes a fundamental component in the definition of a brand. Traditional brands possess the capability to generate brand names and exercise control over all factors that can shape consumer perceptions. In contrast, the branding of destinations presents more challenges since it cannot always change its names. Nevertheless, regardless of whether a brand is traditional or destination-oriented, it is imperative to remain aware of the elements that affect individuals' perceptions associated with the brand name. Given that brand masculinity and femininity are important elements influencing brand equity, this research elucidates the impact of grammatical gender on the perception of brand masculinity and femininity. We conducted three empirical studies employing quantitative methodologies. The initial two studies demonstrate that classical and destination brands characterized by a masculine grammatical form are perceived as more masculine than their feminine counterparts, and vice versa. The third study illustrates that grammatical gender serves as a important factor in shaping perceptions of masculinity and femininity concerning actual countries for French speakers, whereas this phenomenon is not applicable to English speakers.
