2023 SSHRC Insight Grants awarded

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) is the federal research funding agency that promotes and supports research and training in the humanities and social sciences.

Samer Faraj, Professor of Strategy & Organization, named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada

Professor Samer Faraj has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada’s Academy of Social Sciences. This honour is conferred upon Professor Faraj in recognition of his outstanding research and scholarly achievement.

Selecting Cover Images for Restaurant Reviews: AI vs. Wisdom of the Crowd

Authors: Warut Khern-am-nuai, Hyunji So, Maxime C. Cohen and Yossiri Adulyasak

Publication: Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Forthcoming

Abstract:

Restaurant review platforms, such as Yelp and Tripadvisor, routinely receive large numbers of photos in their review submissions. These photos provide significant value for users who seek to compare restaurants. In this context, the choice of cover images (i.e., representative photos of the restaurants) can greatly influence the level of user engagement on the platform. Unfortunately, selecting these images can be time consuming and often requires human intervention. At the same time, it is challenging to develop a systematic approach to assess the effectiveness of the selected images. In this paper, we collaborate with a large review platform in Asia to investigate this problem. We discuss two image selection approaches, namely crowd-based and AI-based systems. The AI-based system we use learn complex latent image features, which is further enhanced by transfer learning to overcome the scarcity of labeled data. We collaborate with the platform to deploy our AI-based system through a randomized field experiment to carefully compare both systems. We find that the AI-based system outperforms the crowd-based counterpart and boosts user engagement by 12.43%-16.05% on average. We then conduct empirical analyses on observational data to identify the underlying mechanisms that drive the superior performance of the AI-based system. Finally, we infer from our findings that the AI-based system outperforms the crowd-based system for restaurants with a (i) longer tenure on the platform, (ii) limited number of user-generated photos, (iii) lower star rating, and (iv) lower user engagement during the crowd-based system.

McGill Desautels supports AMCIS 2023 and social impact research projects in Panama

AMCIS 2023, an AIS conference taking place from August 10 to 12 in Panama City and co-chaired by McGill Desautels’ IS Area Coordinator Professor Animesh Animesh, aims to highlight the impact of research projects in technology on local communities.

The Path to Hedonic Information System Use Addiction: A Process Model in the Context of Social Networking Sites

Authors: Isaac Vaghefi, Bogdan Negoita, and Liette Lapointe

Publication: Information Systems Research; Volume 34, Issue 1, March 2023, Pages 85-110

Abstract:

Delve: Are Digital Tech Workers Coding Themselves Out of Existence? with Emmanuelle Vaast and Alain Pinsonneault

What if just doing your job causes you to lose your job? New technologies have constantly replaced old technologies for hundreds of years, but new digital technologies, namely artificial intelligence and other data-driven technologies, are doing more than replacing old tech—they’re replacing the people who create those technologies in the first place.

Graduates and Outstanding Achievements Celebrated at Spring Convocation 2023

The McGill Desautels Faculty of Management proudly celebrated its Spring 2023 Convocation on Wednesday, May 31. The event served as a special recognition for the exceptional accomplishments of students who have successfully completed their degrees in the Undergraduate and Postgraduate programs during the academic year of Fall 2022 and Winter 2023. Addresses were made bt McGill Principal Deep Saini, Chancellor John H.

Celebrating excellence in teaching at Desautels

Across programs and subject areas, the Desautels Faculty of Management recognizes the vital role that teaching plays in enriching the student experience and in inspiring the next generation of leaders.

The Impact of Online Q&As on Product Sales: The Case of Amazon Answer

Authors: Warut Khern-am-nuai, H. Ghasemkhani, D. Qiao and K.N. Kannan

Publication: Information Systems Research, Forthcoming

Negative Peer Feedback and User Content Generation: Evidence from a Restaurant Review Platform

Authors: K. Zhu, Warut Khern-am-nuai and Y. Yu

Publication: Production and Operations Management, Forthcoming

Prof Han awarded FRQSC New Academics Grant

Congratulations to Elizabeth Han, Assistant Professor in Information Systems, who has been awarded the 2023-2024 FRQSC New Academics Grant (Soutien à la recherche pour la relève professorale)

Delve: Why Friendly AI Chatbots Don’t Always Deliver Five-Star Customer Service, with Elizabeth Han

Logically everyone knows that software doesn’t have feelings, but AI chatbots that express emotion—as well as other advanced artificial intelligence tools like

Desautels researchers celebrated at Bravo 2023

McGill University hosted its annual Bravo gala on Thursday March 30, which honours its researchers and scholars who have won special awards, memberships and prizes over the past year.

Prof Han's research paper recognized by the Association for Information Systems (AIS)

Congratulations to Elizabeth Han, Assistant Professor in Information Systems, whose research paper with co-authors Dezhi Yin (University of South Florida) and Han Zhang (Georgia Institute of Technology) titled “Chatbot Empathy in Customer Service: When It Works and When It Backfires” has been selected 2022 Best Paper Runner-Up by the Association for Information Systems (AIS) - Special Interest Group on Human Computer Interaction

Bots with Feelings: Should AI Agents Express Positive Emotion in Customer Service?

Authors: Elizabeth Han, Dezhi Yin and Han Zhang

Publication: Information Systems Research, Forthcoming Published online Articles in Advance: December 2, 2022

Abstract: