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Women proposing: Gender equality in wedding rituals 

Vera Hoelscher, Royal Holloway, University of LondonDaniela Pirani, University of LiverpoolRatna Khanijou, Goldsmiths, University of London  When Carl and Juliet left their wooden cabin to go on a hike of the Norwegian summer scenery, little did Carl know that his girlfriend was about to propose. As they headed through the woodlands to a nearby lake,…

How do Remote Workers Perform during COVID-19 Lockdowns?

*This blog is based on our paper published in the Information Technology and People journal. Dr Xinying Yu | Senior Lecturer | School of Business Management, Royal Holloway, University of LondonProf Yuwen Liu | Professor | Institute of Technology Management, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan With the advancement of technology in recent years, researchers have…

Cevdet Bulut Receives Best Conference Paper Award

PhD student Cevdet Bulut, along his co-author and supervisor Dr. Philip Wu of Royal Holloway, University of London were recently awarded the Best Complete Paper Award at the annual conference of the Association for Information Systems, AMCIS 2022, held in Minneapolis, MN, United States on August 10-14, 2022. They were honoured for their paper titled…

Fostering Social Value in Digital Transformation Initiatives

By Niki Panteli DOS Co-Director & Professor of Digital Business, Royal Holloway University of London School of Business and Management (niki.panteli@rhul.ac.uk) My contribution centres around the argument that digital transformation can create a better world by taking a broader perspective on the value that could be created though digital initiatives. The study I present here…

It’s all part of the customer journey: The impact of augmented reality, chatbots, and social media on the body image and self-esteem of Generation Z female consumers

By Nisreen Ameen In a recently published study (Ameen, Cheah and Kumar, 2022) in Psychology and Marketing, we investigate how experiences of using augmented reality, artificial intelligence-enabled chatbots, and social media when interacting with beauty brands affect body image, self-esteem, and purchase behaviour among female consumers in Generation Z. Through three studies, we propose and…

The growth of rental proptech: hybridisation and data risk

By Thomas Wainwright What’s the issue? UK homeownership rates peaked in 2003 at 70.9%, before falling to 63.9% in 20181. A combination of precarious work, stagnant pay and increasing property prices have seen more households find themselves within the private rental sector (PRS). In contrast to other countries, the UK’s rental market is fragmented, consisting…

Consumer interactions with artificial intelligence – enabled chatbots in retail shopping experiences

By Xiaoxia Cao Supervisors:   Dr Nisreen Ameen and Professor Chris HackleyRoyal Holloway, University of London Companies are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence to automate marketing tasks. For example, chatbots are frequently mentioned to be beneficial for the retail industry regarding customer service (about 95%), sales/marketing (about 55%), and order processing (about 48%) (Rese, Ganster and…

Developing a Multi-focal Perspective for the study of Digital Transformation

As researchers within the field of Information Systems, we may bring the individual, organisations and/or societal perspectives to examine specific ICT-related phenomena. In this article, I focus on the emerging phenomenon of Digital Transformation  and argue that this can and should be studied from different perspectives. I come into this debate with my research interest…

Narratives of IT project failure in Government

Christopher Hall | PhD Student | School of Business Management, Royal Holloway, University of London. One thing most readers will know about large Government IT projects is that many end up being labelled ‘failures’, leading to delays in the implementation of policy and write-offs of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. Much previous academic work has…

Inequality of What?: Digital Inequality under Covid-19

Dr Yingqin Zheng | Senior Lecturer | School of Business Management, Royal Holloway, University of London.Prof Geoff Walsham | Emeritus Professor | Judge Business School, University of Cambridge *This blog is based on our short paper to be published in the journal Information and Organization. The covid-19 pandemic has thrown a spotlight on deep seated inequalities across…

Virtual Spiritual Agency in Times of Covid

Dr Chloe Preece | Senior Lecturer | School of Business Management, Royal Holloway, University of London.Dr Victoria Rodner | Lecturer | University of Edinburgh Business School, University of Edinburgh “Zoom made my life much easier,” explains Mãe (mother) Fernanda, an Afro-Brazilian priestess from the coastal city of Santos (Brazil).  Like many of us, facing an indefinite lockdown, Mãe…

The new DOS interdisciplinary research cluster on Cybersecurity, Design and Human Behaviour

Dr. Nisreen Ameen and Dr. Elizabeth Quaglia | Cluster co-leaders On 6th November 2020, a new research cluster within RHUL’s DOS Research Centre was launched. The new research cluster on ‘Cybersecurity, Design and Human Behaviour’ aims to offer a welcoming environment for idea exchange, a platform for researchers from different research areas at RHUL and…

Gig-work and spatiotemporal (in)justice: Auto-ethnographic study of food delivery platforms

Shyam Krishna| PhD Candidate| School of Business and Management at Royal Holloway, University of London. In recent months amidst the uncertainty of COVID-19, food delivery workers in India have faced a tightening of their working conditions. The main contention voiced by the workers in strikes and protests is that digital platforms have lowered effective wages by changing…

Why Amazon Reviewers Review (and How to Deal with Fake Reviews)

Dr Philip Wu | Senior Lecturer | Department of Digital Innovation and Management at Royal Holloway, University of London. Online reviews have become an important phenomenon in this so-called reputation economy. Headlines such as “online reviews impact purchasing decisions for over 93% of consumers” seem exaggerated but not entirely surprising. On the surface, online reviews are simply…

COVID-19 driven digital transformation in retail business

Xiangming Tao|PhD Student (4th Year)| Royal Holloway School of Business and Management The virtues of digital transformation have been promoted by the popular business press and academic articles, particularly in the pursuit of strategic renewal (Warner and Wäger, 2019). The massive scale of Covid-19 outbreak and lockdown policy have further demonstrated the significance of digital…

Notes on Digital Activism

Dr Vera Hoelscher|Lecturer in Marketing| Royal Holloway School of Business and Management On 19 February 2020, the DOS Research Centre organised a half-day event on Digital Activism. The purpose of the day was to learn about the nature and impact of digitally enabled and enhanced mobilisation for political, economic and social change, and how research…

Leading Effectively Online

Niki Panteli | Professor of Digital Business|Royal Holloway University of London In the current unprecedented times caused by the Covid-19 outbreak where many of us have been forced to stay at home and work virtually, the role of the organisational leader is critical.  In this new context, leaders willingly or not need to become e-leaders and…

Remote working: Keeping your distance but also your well-being

DOS research scholars give some tips on remote working Digital technologies in this moment are crucial to our working arrangements as we maintain social distance and work from home but how can we manage our remote digital work and maintain a sense of well-being?  DOS scholars reflect on what we have learnt from our own…

The digital transformation of social movements: is it good to be “seen”?

Evronia Azer | Assistant Professor | Centre for Business in Society at Coventry University It is argued that the rise of social media has given rise to new forms of protest action, where the digital space has empowered activists and given lots of opportunities for activism to be successful. Lately, more researchers and media outlets are starting to…

“How many steps have you done today?”

Researching fitness trackers in everyday life. Amalina Zakariah | PhD Student (3rd Year) | Royal Holloway School of Business and Management As the title suggests, my PhD research looks into the consumption of self-tracking technologies (i.e. wearables, fitness trackers) in everyday lives. Some popular examples include, smart wristbands like the Apple Watch, Fitbit and Garmin,…

Research Exchange CBS-DOS-CHRONOS

On Monday 16th September, DOS welcomed colleagues from Copenhagen Business School to Royal Holloway.  Most of our CBS colleagues are associated with the Digital Transformations Platform at CBS, which seeks to explore the relationship between technology and society and, amongst other things, runs a very successful Research Fellow Programme involving visits from pre-eminent scholars in…

Welcome to DOS Research Centre

DOS was launched as a research theme within the School of Management in January 2017 and became a College Research Centre in May 2018. As we are living in an era when digital technology is rapidly reconfiguring organisations, industries and society, as well as individual’s daily lives, a digital research group was timely to promote…