Laurens Rook

Observing Group Decision Making Processes

Most research on group recommender systems relies on the assumption that individuals have conflicting preferences; in order to generate group recommendations the system should identify a fair way of aggregating these preferences. Both empirical studies and theoretical frameworks have tried to identify the most effective preference aggregation techniques without coming to definite conclusions. In this paper, we propose to approach group recommendation from the group dynamics perspective and analyze the group decision making process for a particular task (in the travel domain). We observe several individual and group properties and correlate them to choice satisfaction. Supported by these initial results we therefore advocate for the development of new group recommendation techniques that consider group dynamics and support the full group decision making process.

Creativity and Imitation: Effects of Regulatory Focus and Creative Exemplar Quality

In creative settings, exposure to creative exemplar products may invite imitation and as such influence creative performance. In understanding creativity, it, therefore, is important to be able to predict imitation of creative exemplar products. Regulatory focus theory can do so, and leads to predictions that deviate from the existing body of knowledge concerning regulatory focus and creativity in the absence of exemplar products. In this study, we proposed that high creative exemplar quality elicits more imitation—and thus lowered creativity—for promotion-focused individuals, whereas creative exemplar quality does not affect the creative process for prevention-focused individuals. To enable a relatively objective measurement of creativity and imitation, these predictions were tested in a laboratory experiment. Results supported predictions, indicating that knowledge about how strongly people engage in imitation in the face of a creative exemplar product leads to more adequate predictions how creative people really are.

Researching Individual Satisfaction with Group Decisions in Tourism: Experimental Evidence

The goal of the present study was to investigate how satisfied individuals are with the final outcome of a group decision-making process on a joint travel destination. Using an experimental paradigm (N total = 200, N groups = 55) it was obvious to hypothesize that individuals would especially be satisfied with the final group decision when it matched their own initial travel preference and that they would be dissatisfied in case it mismatched their initial preference. However, in addition the influence of personality and group dynamics differences (Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, Five Factor Model) as well as travel types of the individual decision maker on the satisfaction level with the group decision outcome as the dependent variable were further researched. The paper concludes with implications for e-tourism, especially with regards to the development of interactive tools for group travel.

In pursuit of evidence: a design and empirical study of a gamified online marketplace

Gamification seems a promising method to engage people and stimulate their activity, both offline and online, but has a dearth of empirical evidence in scientific literature. This study investigated whether gamification can have a positive effect on the amount of user-generated content on online marketplaces. Two similar gamification treatments were designed for the mobile website of OLX India, a marketplace for used goods. The treatments were quantitatively evaluated in a double-blind controlled experiment on 51,103 OLX users, who were randomly selected and evenly assigned to a control group and two treatment groups. The users who actively engaged with either of the treatments created more than 6 times as much content as users who did not engage with the treatments, resulting in an overall content increase of over 18% for the treatment groups compared to the control group. Gamification on online marketplaces is effective for users who actively interact with a treatment, not for all users per se.

Exposure to the Color Red Enhances Creative Thinking Depending on Appetitive-Aversive Cues

This research explored the notion that the effect of the color red on creative thinking varies depending on someones appetitive (vs. aversive) motivational orientation prior to the creative act. Specifically, inducing approach-related appetite (relative to avoidance-related aversion) in participants would enhance creative thinking, because the color red then triggers the approach-related meaning of potential success. A classroom experiment using a Remote Associates Test showed that appetition (relative to aversion), indeed, yielded more creativity for red than for blue. These results confirmed this articles prediction, and especially contribute to existing color research on the context specificity of the color red.

Enhancing Innovation and Creativity through Servant Leadership

Creativity is of vital importance for organizations that compete in globally operating markets faced with market dynamics and determined to stay ahead of the competition. In such organizations, employees have to constantly generate products and services that are original and innovative (for example, Basadur, 2004). In this light, many studies suggest that the maintenance and/or improvement of intrinsic motivation among individual employees in the workplace is key to the proper management of organizational creativity (Amabile, 1996). In the organizational context, there is a growing need for adequate knowledge on the relationship between leadership and creativity (Zhou and Shalley, 2008), particularly given the crucial influence that leadership exerts on the learning processes that are so vital to creativity. Servant leadership theory may be specifically suited for understanding the management of creativity and innovation because of its employee-focused nature, which aims at enhancing the intrinsic motivation of employees. In this chapter, we present a model for servant leadership and creativity, building on the observation that the encouragement of followers, largely, to manage their own work is not only the defining feature of a servant-leader, but is also the key element in the management of creativity in the organizational setting.

Exploring Users' Perception of Rating Summary Statistics

Collaborative filtering systems heavily depend on user feedback expressed in product ratings to select and rank items to recommend. These summary statistics of rating values carry two important descriptors about the assessed items, namely the total number of ratings and the mean rating value. In this study we explore how these two signals influence the decisions of online users based on choice-based conjoint experiments. Results show that users are more inclined to follow the mean indicator as opposed to the total number of ratings. Empirical results can serve as an input to developing algorithms that foster items with a, consequently, higher probability of choice based on their rating summarizations or their it explainability due to these ratings when ranking recommendations.

Reinforcement Sensitivity and Engagement in Proactive Recommendations: Experimental Evidence

We drew on revised Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory to claim that users with an anxiety-related behavioral inhibition would experience proactively delivered recommendations as potential threats. Such users would display higher user engagement especially when they were interrupted by inaccurate (vs. accurate) recommendations, because they ruminate about them. This prediction was tested and confirmed in a controlled experiment that exposed participants to proactive recommendations on their smartphone. Results highlight the need to gain more knowledge on the neural correlates of anxiety, and to apply such insights to human–computer interaction design for recommender systems.

Engagement in proactive recommendations

The present research explored to what extent user engagement in proactive recommendation scenarios is influenced by the accuracy of recommendations, concerns with information privacy, and trait personality. We hypothesized that people’s self-reported information privacy concerns would matter more when they received accurate (vs. inaccurate) proactive recommendations, because these pieces of advice would seem fair to them. We further hypothesized that this would particularly be the case for people high on the social personality trait Extraversion, who are by inclination prone to behaving in a more socially engaging manner. We put this to the test in a controlled experiment, in which users received manipulated proactive recommendations of high or low accuracy on their smartphone. Results indicated that information privacy concerns positively influenced a user’s engagement with proactive recommendations. Recommendation accuracy influenced user engagement in interaction with information privacy concerns and personality traits. Implications for the design of human-computer interaction for recommender systems are addressed.