AR Master Theses
Sven Adamik (April 2018)
Augmented Reality Usage in Social Interactions: Exploring Augmented Social Interactivity in a Decision-Making Context
Firms increasingly use the emerging technology of augmented reality (AR) to enhance customers’ online and offline experiences. AR’s latest developments allow users to expand their reality and furthermore to interactively share that perception with their fellow human beings. Yet, AR research has focused mainly on individual experiences, neglecting the question of how AR can transform passive bystanders into actively engaged contributors. This paper contributes to the developing research on social AR by (1) conceptualizing augmented social interactivity in social AR and its effect on customer decision-making and reflections thereof, (2) demonstrating the mediating role of co-presence in the decision-making process with AR, and (3) explaining how the source of a recommendation provided through AR constitutes a relevant boundary condition to the previously mentioned relationships. Augmented social interactivity, that is receiving a recommendation with AR visualizations, leads to more decision comfort and marginally more decision confidence. This effect is based on an increased sense of sharing the physical space of the decision context with the provider of the recommendation. However, decision comfort was negatively affected when the recommendation was given by a virtual shopping assistant.
Guido Roebroek (January 2018)
Augmented Reality in Blue-Collar SCM: The Influence of Regulatory Mode Orientations and Time Pressure on Subjective Perceptions of Work Quality
An emerging class of technologies, referred to as Augmented Reality (AR), assumes a central role in current industrial developments and is increasingly being applied across a variety of industrial contexts. However, there is little knowledge about the impact of AR on workers’ subjective perceptions of work quality. An experiment is conducted where 62 students equipped with AR smart glasses perform an order picking task to assess how workers’ regulatory mode orientations (locomotion & assessment) are, in an AR applied setting, related to four subjective perceptions of work quality: self-efficacy, task enjoyment, perceived task success, and task satisfaction. The mediating linking pin in these relationships is established to be engagement. Additionally, the moderating effect of time pressure on these relationships is assessed. The results indicate that without time pressure, both assessment and locomotion orientations relate favorably to engagement and subjective perceptions of work quality; in the event of time pressure, assessment and locomotion orientations are respectively neutral and unfavorably related towards engagement and subjective perceptions of work quality.
Jenny Wong (November 2017)
The Empathy Machine: The Effectiveness of VR Technology Supported Marketing Campaigns to Increase Engagement Towards NPOs
Marketers are increasingly challenged to deliver more compelling content that engages consumers and allows for more meaningful interactions. The study at hand explores how the use of Virtual reality (VR) offers non-profit organizations (NPO) new ways to promote charitable behaviour for their fundraising campaigns and support programmes. Therefore, the role of high spatial presence evoked by VR is examined in the relationship of moral identity and empathy on behavioural intentions. In particular this research seeks to investigate the effectiveness of VR to increase people’s word-of-mouth intentions, and willingness or intended amount of donation. This is particularly relevant for non-profit marketers such as of organizations like the United Nations Children’s Fund (unicef). VR enables people to gain a more realistic ‘feeling of being there’ and perspective of the situation, which can influence people’s trust and better understanding of the purpose of the monetary donations and support activities. Empathy has empirically shown to be an important indicator for charitable giving. This paper makes theoretical contributions to existing research about the role of moral identity, empathy on people’s behavioural intentions by examining the effectiveness of high spatial presence (VR technology) to positively amplify this relationship. Therefore, practical implications on how to optimize the benefits of VR for NPO campaigns are provided in addition to the theoretical contributions in this emerging research field.
Jakob Ossmann (August 2017)
The Virtues of Virtual Reality: The Impact of Virtual Reality Experiences on Sustainable Consumption
This study investigates the potential impact of virtual reality (VR) experiences on ethical consumption behavior. By drawing on the theory of planned behavior the present work demonstrates that the state of Spatial Presence as salient feature of VR experiences is able to mitigate the attitude-behavior gap in ethical consumption. The results revealed improved attitudes and intentions but also increased behavior related to the consumption of sustainable products. This study furthermore contributes to social psychology and consumption behavior literature by showing that subjective norms operate as a moderator of the effect of Spatial Presence on attitudes related to ethical consumption. The findings include important implications for marketing professionals working with sustainable products as they suggest to utilize VR experiences that maximize Spatial Presence, are focused on attitude change and that consider the social background of the targeted consumers.
Pepijn Poels (August 2017)
A Shared Vision: Exploring Social Augmented Reality for Online Retail
After the revolutionary technological impact of Augmented Reality (AR), more and more online retailers are pursuing a strategy that integrates AR in their online retail channel. This interactive shopping technology helps to visualize and understand products, and creates an authentic buying experience. More recently, Social Augmented Reality (SAR) applications that allow customers to share an augmented experience are being integrated into online retail channels. This study adds a social function to an existing AR application for online retail to measure the impact of AR spatial presence, social presence, and their interaction on customer decision comfort and decision confidence. The results reveal that a feeling of spatial presence predicts decision comfort and decision confidence. Social presence predicts decision confidence but not decision comfort. Furthermore, customers’ privacy concerns attenuate the positive relationship between spatial presence and decision confidence. Notably, the opposite is found for social presence; the effect on decision confidence is strengthened by customers’ privacy concerns. These results suggest that SAR applications are an effective tool for enhancing online retail experiences and warrant future research.
Aleksandra Baranska (July 2017)
Make it real: How Augmented Reality can enhance customers' decision making for online shopping
As online retailers face the challenge of increasing virtual shopping cart abandonment and product returns, they need to employ differentiation strategies. The use of interactive technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) is believed to enhance customers’ e-commerce experience. Two studies are conducted to assess the influence of AR-induced spatial presence on customers’ decision comfort and confidence, as well as to identify relevant boundary conditions to these effects. The results render AR technology as an effective marketing tool to enhance customers’ decision making and translate these benefits into relevant marketing outcomes, such as positive word-of-mouth and purchase intentions. Furthermore, the effect of spatial presence on decision comfort is greater for customers who are situationally primed with a visual style of information processing; the effect of spatial presence on decision confidence is more pronounced for customers with natural disposition towards verbal information processing. Additionally, customers with a prevention focus derive more decision comfort from spatial presence.
Lara Griewel (Janurary 2016)
Dazzling Experiences for Body and Mind - How Augmented Reality Enhances Tourism Experiences
Experiential marketing has become a cornerstone of travel and tourism marketing as tourism organizations focus on marketing holistic experiences rather than a mere destination. Simultaneously, innovative technologies play a pivotal role in enhancing consumer experiences as they have gained an aesthetic experiential character. These developments are merged under the user experience (UX) paradigm, which is about creating positive experiences by designing technology for pleasure. In this light, Augmented Reality (AR) has been proclaimed as a promising vehicle to deliver exceptional tourism experiences due to its engaging nature. Since AR literature lacks a user-centeredness approach and precise managerial guidelines, this study examines underlying processes and consequences of mobile AR tourism services to close this research gap. Taking a UX approach, eight hypotheses were developed to examine the relationships among experiential marketing based on mobile AR (mAR), customer delight and behavioral intentions. Firstly, a qualitative interview was conducted to establish overall support for the conceptual framework. Secondly, a mAR city walk was re-created in a laboratory experiment and evaluated by the experiment participants. A partial least squares analysis (SmartPLS) reveals that the measurement model and structural model have a good overall fit. Further outcomes suggest that mAR tourism services provide multiple sensory stimuli, which induce customer delight. Delight favorably influences recommendations to others and intentions to re-use the service in the same and in another destination. Tourism marketers can use of these findings to learn how to effectively design and apply mAR tourism services to stage an environment from which a delighting tourism experience can emerge.
Carolin Basak (Janurary 2016)
Showrooming - The Effects of Augmented Reality Technology Use in Offline Retailing
The showrooming effect, where consumers are using the retail store as a showroom and then look for the best possible deal online via their smartphones, is of increasing interest, especially for offline retailers. This research aims to investigate the impact of technological advances, especially of Augmented Reality (AR) applications on mobile devices, on the showrooming behavior of consumers. To do this, the flow experience of using AR technology in comparison to using the Internet browser on mobile devices, is compared. Additionally, boundary conditions, such as consumer traits (personal innovativeness in the domain of technology and market mavenism) and price differences, are included. To obtain overall support for the conceptual framework and for the interest in AR in general, an in-depth qualitative interview was conducted. Following, an experimental study was performed, measuring four conditions, with technology (AR versus NON-AR technology) and price (higher online price versus lower online price compared to the offline price) comprising the different conditions. It was found that showrooming behavior is not determined by the adopted technology. Users did not intend to showroom to a higher extent when using AR technology compared to other technology. Rather, the likelihood of showrooming behavior is higher when the online price is lower than the offline price. Concluding, theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are given.
Sonja Beier (August 2015)
An investigation of augmented reality use in online retailing
Augmented reality technology has emerged as a marketing tool in online retailing. In two phases, this study conceptualizes, develops, refines, and tests a multiple-item scale for the feeling of presence that emerges during the use of augmented reality technology. In a first step, the feeling of presence is conceptualized in the AR context. Through an extensive literature review scale items are identified and adapted. Using exploratory factor analysis the scale is then refined and tested for reliability. Based on structural equation modelling, the scale’s nomological network is examined and possible outcomes are identified. Through quantitative analysis, an 11-item two-dimensional presence scale was developed that includes the dimensions object location and possible actions. Due to the use of different samples as well as various reliability and validity tests, the scale presents a sound measurement tool. Managerial implications and directions for future research are presented at the end.
Lars Sturges (July 2015)
Augmenting Our Means - The Current Role and Future Potential of Augmented Reality in Supply Chain Management
This thesis reviews the existing literature on augmented reality (AR) applications in supply chain management (SCM), and then, by means of an analytical hierarchy process, compares its findings with responses to a questionnaire submitted to industry professionals. The study consists of six main sections. The first one provides an introduction to this thesis and the topic of AR; this is followed in the second section by an outline of the history of AR. The third section describes current AR devices. The fourth part first explains the methodology used in reviewing the existing literature, before providing insights for practitioners and avenues for future research according to four different research focuses: (1) quality dimensions of AR, (2) cognitive mechanisms, (3) impact of AR, (4) industry and user characteristics. The fifth part evaluates the responses gathered from practitioners and determines whether these corroborate the findings of the literature review. The conclusion summarizes the results, outlines the limitations of this study and indicates potential directions for future research.