Artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine offers a unique opportunity to improve the global health system. However, consumers remain skeptical about AI's ability to accurately assess their medical condition. The five studies here provide insights into consumers’ reluctance to use AI-produced health care recommendations. Consumers are less willing to follow a medical recommendation from AI (vs. from a human) when the medical diagnosis provides health results that are good (i.e., symptoms do not require medical care) versus bad (i.e., symptoms are worrisome and may require urgent care) (Study 1a). The effect is mediated by consumers’ perception of diagnosis trustworthiness (Study 1b) and enhanced by consumers’ health anxiety score (Study 2). Providing social proof (e.g., number of satisfied customers recommending the service) reduces the negative effect of health anxiety on consumers’ trust in the medical diagnosis and increases their willingness to follow the AI's recommendations (Study 3a). The findings provide insights into the psychological drivers of acceptance of automated health care and suggest possible actions to overcome consumers’ reluctance to follow AI medical recommendations.

This article contributes to the discussion on the sustainability of the sharing economy by adopting the Social Capital Theory to expand explanations of the sharing economy’s role and scope of relations with local communities in the context of overtourism. As mutual relationships have not been fully recognized through a theoretical perspective, the article aims to examine the sustainability of the process of the sharing economy impacting urban tourism communities in light of Robert Putnam’s approach to Social Capital Theory. On the basis of a selective systematic review, the article discusses the sustainability of the sharing economy through the lens of bridging and bonding social capital. We argue that a new configuration of social capital, i.e., a sharing platform-modified social capital, arises from the unsustainable and disruptive power of the sharing economy implemented by virtual platforms, thereby contributing to an overtourism syndrome. However, from a medium- and long-term perspective, the sharing economy also impacts the bridging nature of social capital, which should lead to a more sustainable balance in its structure. This initial framework for understanding the impact of the sharing economy on sustainability of local communities provides an alternative approach to studying residents’ perceptions and attitudes towards tourism in the areas affected by overtourism.

The objective of this study is to identify the environment for business interactions in virtual reality in the value co-production and co-creation process and to understand how such an environment enables the sustainable development of co-creational activities. This paper takes the concepts of value co-production and co-creation and presence and the Actors, Resources, and Activities Model as conceptual references for the exploration of interactions in virtual reality. Using ten in-depth interviews with senior managers, this paper takes an exploratory case analysis perspective. Results show how the sense of presence—level of immersion to which a medium that produces seemingly accurate representations of objects, events, and people, can submerge the perceptual system of a user—is the primary technical resource enabling the performance of value co-production and co-creational activities inside VR simulations. Additionally, the VR consultants and the hiring firms become the actors, organizing the value-co-production and co-creation practices; those customers and employees are the actors performing five co-creational activities that can result in valuable outcomes for the VR consultants and the hiring firms. Virtual reality is one of the newest vehicles used for the co-production and co-creation of value, for innovating existing products, for sustainable creation of new marketing offerings, or for managing network relations. This study contributes to existent literature by showing the process and practice of value co-production and value co-creation taking place in virtual reality simulations in B2B settings.

Purpose: Despite the recent surge in studies on implementing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in different B2C settings, extant work on human-AI interaction in the B2B context are predominantly conceptual. To address this gap, the present work provides empirical evidence on the factors shaping human-AI interaction in business service interactions. Design/methodology/approach: In two vignette-based experimental studies and one field experiment, we examine the role of a business interaction’s essential but overlooked outcome (successful vs. unsuccessful) in the attributional process, answering whether managers’ locus of causality toward human (vs. AI) company representatives mediates satisfaction from the interaction. Data were collected from marketing managers with B2B experience. They were randomly assigned to scenarios describing a business conversation between a human and another company representative, human or AI agent. Findings: Our study demonstrates that company managers attributed AI success to external factors in the case of successful performance. In contrast, the success of human agents was attributed internally. Moreover, the external attribution of successful AI diminishes anticipated satisfaction from working with the AI. Originality/value: Our findings deepen our understanding of the psychological mechanisms that shape human-AI interaction and provide actionable insights for integrating AI into the business service. They contribute to discussions on attribution processes towards AI, studies on satisfaction with the use of AI, and tests of the mediating nature of locus of causality in shaping managers’ satisfaction with AI collaboration.