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Purpose: Drawing on the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) framework and color psychology theory, this research investigates how a service robotic dog’s color, green message framing, and service encounter context shape customers’ emotional and behavioral responses to green practices in the hospitality industry. Design/methodology/approach: This study employs a progressive three-study experimental design to capture both immediate and sustained effects. Findings: Study 1 shows that a green-colored robotic dog delivering socially framed messages is more effective than their counterparts in enhancing customers’ emotional engagement and willingness to participate in green programs. Study 2 demonstrates that public context significantly amplifies the persuasive effects of the green robotic dog delivering a socially framed message. Extending these findings, Study 3 employs a two-wave design to examine customer lagged sustainable behaviors 48 hours after the initial interaction, offering deeper insights into the persistence of color-induced effects over time. Practical implications: The three studies provide actionable guidance for the service industry to optimize the visual design and communication strategies of AI devices, thereby fostering sustained customer engagement in sustainable practices and advancing organizational sustainability goals. Originality/value: This study provides significant theoretical contributions by extending SOR, color psychology, and service robot literature into the sustainability domain and offers valuable practical guidance for the service industry on how to strategically integrate AI-enabled services into sustainability initiatives.

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education is challenged by industries to incorporate business, engineering, and communication experiences to prepare students for workplace success. In this study, we outline an approach—the STEM Oriented Alliance for Research (SOAR)—to enhance student experience by offering interdisciplinary project-based learning (IPBL) for undergraduate students majoring in electrical engineering, communications, and marketing. We examined how students’ disciplinary and cooperative orientations toward learning shifted in response to their experiences in a semester-long interdisciplinary project-based learning experience with authentic industry outputs. Using a multi-method approach, we explored how interdisciplinary projects influenced student experiences in terms of five collaboration abilities: positive interdependence, accountability, promotive interaction, group processing, and social skills. Further, we observed a shift from fixed- to more growth-oriented mindsets, and from a primarily disciplinary to interdisciplinary focus for their future professional work. The outcomes of the SOAR project make clear that providing structure for professional cooperation on interdisciplinary projects can have profound effects on how students learn to cooperate and position themselves as learners. For most SOAR participants, the experience was deeply formative and contributed to their readiness to cooperate and learn within the interdisciplinary and STEM-oriented workforce.

Market research highlights Generation Z’s increasing demands for digital brand experiences that inspire word-of-mouth sharing. Virtual reality (VR), an immersive affordances technology, holds promise for experiential marketing due to its power to transform experiences. Yet, limited research has examined how VR influences different facets of brand experiences that empower brand engagement and word-of-mouth. In Study 1, a laboratory experiment demonstrates that VR prompts higher sensory, intellectual, and behavioral brand experiences and word-of-mouth compared to static images and 360° tours, with equal brand engagement as a 360° tour. Study 2 corroborates these findings through a thematic analysis of qualitative insights from Generation Z consumers. This research underscores VR’s vital role in fine-tuning brand experience and brand engagement in the experiential marketing context.

The purpose of this study is to unearth antecedents of regrettable dining experiences related to the information source, action and inaction perspectives, dining companion influence and interactions among information source, the focal customer’s valence and the dining companion’s valence on regret, leading to sequential behavioral outcomes. Using a scenario-based experimental study, 344 qualified questionnaires were collected. Univariate ANOVA and multiple linear regression analyses were implemented. The results of this study reveal that action regret is more intense than inaction regret during the choice-making phase; dining companion negative feedback intensifies focal customer’s regret. The significance of the information source on regret disappeared when only one party reported negative feedback; conversely, when two parties in the co-consumption experience revealed negative feedback, the relationship between information source of choice and regret was sustained. The nature of scenario-based design may lack realism. Thus, more field experiments are encouraged to test the propositions further. This research enhances our understanding of gastronomic experiences in a negative disconfirmation context, drawing upon action/inaction regret theory, attribution theory and the expectancy disconfirmation model. From a triad relationship perspective, this study provides valuable input on who or what will be attributed to the issues when encountering a food and wine sensory failure. Additionally, insightful recommendations are supplied on avoiding the possibility of inducing the experience of regret and how practitioners can increase the potential for a memorable dining experience. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that enriched the existing knowledge of regrettable dining experiences relating to information sources and social influence.

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 entirely disrupted everyone’s daily life including the education system (UNESCO, 2020). The pandemic influenced nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countri...