Purpose: While the proliferation of chatbots allows companies to connect with their customers in a cost- and time-efficient manner, it is not deniable that they quite often fail expectations and may even pose negative impacts on user experience. The purpose of the study is to empirically explore the negative user experience with chatbots and understand how users respond to service failure caused by chatbots.Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts a qualitative research method and conducts thematic analysis of 23 interview transcripts.Findings: It identifies common areas where chatbots fail user expectations and cause service failure. These include their inability to comprehend and provide information, over-enquiry of personal or sensitive information, fake humanity, poor integration with human agents, and their inability to solve complicated user queries. Negative emotions such as anger, frustration, betrayal and passive defeat were experienced by participants when they interacted with chatbots. We also reveal four coping strategies users employ following a chatbots-induced failure: expressive support seeking, active coping, acceptance and withdrawal.Originality/value: Our study extends our current understanding of human-chatbot interactions and provides significant managerial implications. It highlights the importance for organizations to re-consider the role of their chatbots in user interactions and balance the use of human and chatbots in the service context, particularly in customer service interactions that involve resolving complex issues or handling non-routinized tasks.

Green process innovation is itself a complex process and beneficially involves inter‐organizational collaboration across disciplinary, industry and university‐industry boundaries with many opportunities for network action learning. We investigate how green process innovation yields actionable knowledge when co‐directed, co‐developed and co‐deployed in a network of organizations. We undertook two case studies focused on innovation at the water‐energy nexus. With the use of action learning research, we describe and reflect on the actions undertaken by the network to co‐generate learning from green process innovation. We demonstrate how this inter‐organizational learning is grounded in shared experiences, subjected to critical questioning and supported by (and generating) actionable knowledge. Our paper links the green process innovation process with technical and collaborative learning outcomes, achieved through network action learning. Of managerial relevance are two forms of actionable knowledge: that towards solving engineering puzzles and that addressing the problem of collaboration and learning in networks.

The global water crisis, an enormous concern according to the World Economic Forum, poses a significant challenge to long-term sustainability, exacerbated by the high energy demand associated with water supply and treatment. As the renewable energy sector grows, the need for green technologies to support the water-energy nexus becomes evident. However, mere technological advancements are insufficient to address complex water-related challenges. This paper presents a transdisciplinary collaborative effort involving engineers, geographers, management researchers, and environmentalists working with practitioners in a cross-border network. The study explores through action learning research how, in a transdisciplinary partnership, network action learning influences the exploration and implementation of novel green technology and the development of innovation capabilities. The research is structured around three themes: green technology platforms, policy support and guidance, and dissemination and collaboration. It identifies the factors impacting technology exploration and application and how concurrently green innovation capabilities are developed. The study emphasizes the significance of transdisciplinary collaboration and offers valuable insights into addressing UN Sustainability Goals related to clean water, sustainable industry, and partnerships. It contributes to innovation capability theory and provides practical guidance to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, emphasizing the need for holistic approaches to address the water-energy crisis and achieve sustainable development.