EDHEC professor gets the Young Scholar Award

The working paper entitled "Frontline Technology Infusion: Conceptual Archetypes and a Future Research Agenda’ and co-authored by Arne de Keyser, assistant professor of marketing at EDHEC, Sarah Köcher (TU Dortmund University), and Linda Nasr (Texas State University) has been awarded with the Young Scholar Award at the 4th Annual Organizational Frontlines Research Symposium. The award recognizes ongoing work in the field of Organizational Frontlines that is developed by young scholars (i.e., less than three years from PhD graduation).

Arne de Keyser says "My interest in the organizational frontline is triggered by its key importance to any service organization. It embodies the boundary between the company, its customers and other stakeholders. While this used to be a ‘game of people’, today virtually any organizational frontline is infused with technology. In this research, we set out to (1) investigate all ways in which technology infuses the organizational frontline, (2) how novel technologies and interfaces (driven by evolutions in Artificial Intelligence) further impact the organizational frontline, and (3) what this means for academic research and practice."

Abstract of the paper :

"More than ever before, technology is changing the nature of frontline interactions and interfaces. This rapid development resulted in a veritable explosion of service research investigating the impact of technology on customers, FLEs and their interrelationships. Despite the richness of research, the field of frontline technology is very scattered, disregards some of the latest technologies, and lacks theoretical rigor. This gap requires a unifying framework that can guide future research in the field. Therefore, this paper seeks to offer a much-needed conceptualization of frontline technology infusion that can help organize and direct future research. To this end, the authors propose eight archetypes of technology infusion at the frontline. Additionally, they combine findings from a systematic literature review of technology-related service literature with expert interviews with prominent academics to develop a future research agenda on frontline technology infusion.”