To boast or not to boast

Abstract

In the current phase of artificial intelligence development, more and more attention is being paid to technologies that make autonomous decisions. Little attention has been paid to the customers’ and job seekers’ perceptions of heavily technology-empowered organizations in the management and marketing literature. The purpose of this research is to fill this research gap. A between-subject experiment with fictitious brands was conducted with 239 subjects to answer four hypotheses about customers’ attitudes, intention to use the offer, intention to recommend the company to others, and job seekers’ intentions. The results show that an autonomous algorithm universally influences job seekers more than customer referral behaviors. People confronted with brochures from banks and hospitals that use autonomous technologies express a higher intention to work in such organizations than in analogous institutions that do not offer such a service. However, only in banks that use autonomous algorithms the customers have a more positive attitude and a higher intention to use or recommend the service. The hospital’s unknown brand does not benefit from such an advertising approach. This is the first study ever conducted with fictitious brands of banks and hospitals to investigate the referral towards companies using autonomous technologies. The topic is worth exploring as key market players (such as Oracle) recognize autonomous technologies as the most ground-breaking innovation that will shape business in the coming years.