Upcoming seminars in 2026-2027 (scroll down for our most recent seminars)

• Shrabastee Banerjee | Tilburg University (NL) | 16.9.2026

  Abstract: Consumer collective action is an increasingly common means of disciplining firms and platforms, yet its effects are typically short-lived. While this phenomenon is well documented in the literature, two dimensions remain underexplored. First, the evidence comes almost entirely from product markets, not from platform ecosystems where expressed support and withheld engagement occur in the same environment. Second, transience may reflect cheap talk, but testing this requires observing what the same individuals say and do, which is typically limited. We fill these gaps by studying the 2023 Reddit "Go Dark" protest, in which thousands of communities went private over Reddit's new API pricing. Using a difference-in-differences design on matched protesting and control communities and a panel of 100,000 users, with a large language model identifying pre-protest supporters, we find (1) engagement fell sharply during the blackout week but returned to baseline afterwards and (2) supporters reduced their activity more than non-supporters, a pattern that persists even after subreddits reopen. We then explore why the protests failed to have an effect despite committed follow through, and identify two mechanisms: most users returned to their preferred subreddits (rather than broadly substituting to other communities on Reddit) once they opened, and participation was overwhelmingly moderator-driven, misaligning who organized the protest (moderators with direct grievances) and whose sustained defection would impose costs (ordinary users). Platforms can therefore hold captive audiences and absorb collective action even when committed participants follow through, limiting voice and exit as instruments of accountability and motivating antitrust scrutiny.

  Shrabastee Banerjee

• Thorsten Hennig-Thurau | University of Münster (DE) | 30.9.2026

  GenAI Social Actors in Customer Services: How Customer Perceptions Vary Across Interaction Formats

  Abstract: Generative AI has the potential to fundamentally transform customer service by enabling artificial social actors to provide individualized frontline interactions at unprecedented scale. Realizing this potential requires firms to decide through which formats customers should encounter these agents. We focus on three synchronous formats in which customers communicate with the GenAI social actor through speech: voice-only interaction, interaction with an onscreen avatar, and interaction in immersive virtual reality. These formats differ substantially in the amount and intensity of the social cues they provide, yet it remains unclear how these differences affect customers’ perceptions and service outcomes. 

  Drawing on media-as-social-actors theory, we examine customer responses to the same GenAI social actor across these three formats. We conducted a two-stage randomized framed field experiment with 534 students in a supplementary educational service setting. Participants were first assigned either to a lecture-only baseline condition (n = 239) or to an interactive GenAI tutorial (n = 295). Tutorial participants were subsequently randomized to voice (n = 99), screen (n = 100), or virtual reality (n = 96). The GenAI social actor conducted a fully interactive tutorial lasting 10 to 15 minutes, during which students could ask questions while the agent kept the conversation focused on the course content. 

  The tutorial improved objective performance relative to the baseline, establishing the value of the supplementary service itself. Yet adding social cues did not consistently improve customer service outcomes. Compared with voice, the onscreen avatar increased eeriness without increasing social presence or sensory intensity. Compared with the screen format, virtual reality increased social presence and sensory intensity, but also heightened eeriness and exhaustion. These countervailing mechanisms produced no gains in objective performance or satisfaction across interaction formats, while virtual reality reduced reuse intentions relative to both voice and screen. The findings show that enriching GenAI interactions with additional social cues does not necessarily improve customer responses. Effectiveness depends on whether the experiential benefits of added cues outweigh the discomfort and demands associated with more humanlike and immersive interaction formats. 

  Thorsten Hennig-Thurau

• Jonne Guyt | University of Amsterdam (NL) | 4.11.2026

  Jonne Guyt

• Lina Altenburg | Erasmus School of Economics (NL) | 11.11.2026

  Lina Altenburg

• Bob Fennis | University of Groningen (NL) | 02.12.2026

  Bob Fennis