The nature of global work is undergoing a transformative shift. Digital technologies now enable collaboration across national boundaries without requiring physical presence, giving rise to virtual forms of global work. This phenomenon, commonly referred to as global virtual work, has attracted substantial research attention across three business disciplines: international business, information systems, and human resource management. However, each discipline studies the phenomenon from a distinct perspective, often developing in isolation. This results in fragmented knowledge and limited cross-fertilization. In this article, we examine how each discipline conceptualizes and studies global virtual work. We then develop future research perspectives that are inspired by the three aspects of global virtual work: (1) global aspects, (2) virtual aspects, and (3) work-related aspects. We identify thematic overlaps, contradictions, and potential for integration across disciplines, proposing a forward-looking, interdisciplinary research agenda on global virtual work. By synthesizing insights across disciplines, we provide an integrative understanding of the topic. Our approach emphasizes the importance of considering different disciplinary lenses, promoting cross-disciplinary research, and integrating theoretical and empirical perspectives to capture the complexity of global virtual work.

Organizations face socio-technical challenges in developing an inclusive collaborative metaverse. Virtual rooms and avatar representations can unintentionally exclude users by reinforcing stereotypes, increasing cognitive load, or constraining participation, thereby undermining interaction quality, belonging, and authenticity as core components of perceived inclusion. Through qualitative analyses of 24 participants from eight VR teams, we identify five dimensions for inclusion: immersion, belonging, authenticity, emotions, and self-efficacy, and link them to three design perspectives: avatar representation, room design, and collaboration technology. This uncovers three socio-technical tension patterns: anonymity vs. authenticity, clarity vs. immersion, accessibility vs. functionality. Building on these tensions, we derive implications for design that are grounded in theories of social presence and belonging and translate into actionable design heuristics for Collaborative Metaverse systems.Our tension-based framework drives research on inclusion in the Collaborative Metaverse. Strategically, it offers organizations concrete guidance on how to configure the Collaborative Metaverse to support inclusive participation and avoid design decisions that inadvertently exclude parts of the workforce.

This study explores the role of virtual influencers (VIs) as critical touchpoints for enhancing consumers' "Immersive Time (ImT)"-the time spent on virtual reality-empowered immersive platforms. By blurring the lines between virtual and physical-world experiences, immersive platforms transform VIs into "Immersive Virtual Influencers (IVIs)" with enhanced functional capabilities. In this paper, we first assess the nature and extent of consumers' ImT with IVIs. Second, using the affordance perspective, we investigate how IVI design elements impact consumers' expectations of IVIs' functions and, in turn, ImT. Employing a mixed-method approach, our initial survey (N = 179) uncovers that consumers so far only spend limited ImT with IVIs and identifies reasons hindering prolonged engagement. Our following qualitative analysis, based on 30 semi-structured interviews, reveals distinct pathways to enhance ImT for two consumer segments: potential and incumbent users of immersive platforms. For instance, potential users seek an idealized utopia, exemplified by IVIs designed to appear flawless. Conversely, incumbents view immersive platforms as an extension of physical reality, represented by IVIs that embrace greater diversity. By unpacking the nuanced drivers of ImT, we construct a framework on consumer-specific expectations regarding IVI functions. The framework informs about the strategic design and functions of IVIs imperative to fostering a more engaging and prolonged virtual experience for different consumer segments. Thus, we contribute to the burgeoning discourse on how immersive platforms alter consumer behavior and offer guidance for brands on how to navigate the complex dynamics of immersive influencer marketing.

Das Singen im Chor ist eine musikbezogene Aktivität, die typischerweise gemeinsam mit anderen Mitsingenden und in Präsenz durchgeführt wird. Zahlreiche Studien belegen die positiven Auswirkungen von aktivem Musizieren, und insbesondere Chorsingen, auf die physische und psychische Gesundheit. Aufgrund individueller Einschränkungen (z. B. gesundheitlicher Probleme oder beruflicher Verpflichtungen) können viele Personen, die gern im Chor singen würden, jedoch nicht regelmäßig an Chorproben teilnehmen und somit auch nicht von diesen positiven Effekten profitieren. Bereits seit mehr als 15 Jahren existieren technische Lösungen, die das gemeinsame Musizieren und Singen in (nahezu) Echtzeit über das Internet ermöglichen. Online-Chorproben wurden von Chören vielfach während der COVID-19 Pandemie realisiert, als physische Chorproben aufgrund von Kontakt- und Mobilitätseinschränkungen nicht stattfinden konnten. Die Erfahrungen aus der Pandemie zeigen, dass Chorsingen online grundsätzlich funktioniert. Gleichzeitig gibt es noch viele Barrieren, die sowohl während als auch nach der Pandemie verhindern, dass Online-Chorsingen von der breiten Masse angenommen wird. Gerade für Menschen, die nicht (regelmäßig) an physischen Chorproben teilnehmen können, wären Online- oder hybride Angebote jedoch relevant und wertvoll. Auf Basis von Literatur, Umfragedaten, sowie teilnehmender Beobachtung wird in diesem Beitrag eine vergleichende Analyse von Online-Chorsingen mittels herkömmlichen Videokonferenzsystemen und Low-Latency-Software durchgeführt, um das inklusive Potenzial der verschiedenen Ansätze zu bewerten. In der Analyse werden die Dimensionen digitaler Inklusion, persönliche Voraussetzungen der Teilnehmenden, positive und negative Aspekte des Probenerlebnisses sowie generelle Vorteile und Potenziale des Online-Chorsingens betrachtet. Auf Basis der Analyse wird das inklusive Potenzial der verschiedenen Ansätze bewertet und weitere Potenziale des Online-Chorsingens sowie Handlungsempfehlungen abgeleitet.

This study investigates how meeting accessibility and social participation influence organizational commitment in virtual offices. While remote work offers benefits like increased flexibility, it also presents challenges such as isolation and lack of social interaction. Physical offices enhance communication and team spirit, which can be weakened in digital environments. Video conferencing tools like Zoom and Teams help but lack spontaneous interactions. Digital offices and immersive technologies aim to mimic physical offices to improve social presence and interaction. However, these solutions are still developing, and organizations face challenges in adopting them. We conducted an experiment that examines the effects of social inclusion and meeting accessibility on ostracism, isolation, and team commitment. Using social presence theory, we explore the relationships between these factors and organizational commitment. The study provides theoretical insights into how different meeting conditions and accessibility can support organizational commitment. Practically, it offers implications for creating digital work environments that better support social interactions among employees.

More and more brands adopt virtual influencers in the metaverse. Evidence from business practice suggests that coming closer to consumers through deploying virtual influencers can backfire, putting increased pressure on brand managers to understand their potential advantages and disadvantages. This study aims to gain a comprehensive understanding of how virtual influencers affect brand experiences in the metaverse. Based on 15 semi-structured interviews we introduce the concept of a virtual influencer's social proximity capturing its ability to enter a user's personal space in virtual environments. We identify facilitating and restricting technological factors of a virtual influencer and argue that their impact on brand experiences operates via altering social proximity. We contribute to theory by postulating social proximity to provide entry points for future research and guide the design of experience-centric virtual influencers.

Blended and online learning is growing, and self-regulated learning is becoming more relevant. Most often, students struggle with organizing their own learning processes, lose focus or procrastinate. Keeping learners motivated and engaged can be a real challenge. Therefore, we present gamified chatbots as a potential solution. On the one hand, chatbots can provide a more engaging learning experience. On the other hand, gamification can provide motivational incentives to keep learners engaged and motivated. So far, not many studies have elaborated on how gamification can be effectively used to make a chatbot interaction more engaging or improve the learning experience. This study uses an experimental approach to distinguish how a combination of badges and a progress bar can support and motivate learners to stay engaged with their learning activities. We elaborate on the effects of gamified chatbots and support practitioners with guidance on how to design gamified chatbots in education.

The significance of metaverse platforms is growing in both research and practical applications. To utilize the chances and opportunities metaverse platforms offer, research and practice must understand how these platforms create value, which has not been adequately explored. Our research explores the characteristics of metaverse platforms that facilitate value creation for organizations in both B2B and B2C sectors. Employing a qualitative inductive approach, we conducted 15 interviews with decision-makers from international corporations active in the metaverse. We identified 26 metaverse platform characteristics, which we categorized into six dimensions based on the DeLone and McLean Information Systems success model. Subsequently, we provide examples to illustrate the application of these identified characteristics within metaverse platforms. This study contributes to the academic discourse by uncovering the characteristics that shape the competitive landscape of emerging metaverse platforms. Leveraging these characteristics may offer metaverse providers a competitive edge in attracting complementary organizations to their platforms.

Procrastination is the deliberate postponing of tasks knowing that it will have negative consequences in the future. Despite the potentially serious impact on mental and physical health, research has just started to explore the potential of information systems to help students combat procrastination. Specifically, while existing learning systems increasingly employ elements of game design to transform learning into an enjoyable and purposeful adventure, little is known about the effects of gameful approaches to overcome procrastination in academic settings. This study advances knowledge on gamification to counter procrastination by conducting a mixed-methods study among higher education students. Our results shed light on usage patterns and outcomes of gamification on self-efficacy, self-control, and procrastination behaviors. The findings contribute to theory by providing a better understanding of the potential of gamification to tackle procrastination. Practitioners are supported by implications on how to design gamified learning systems to support learners in self-organized work.

The global landscape and labour market are rapidly evolving in the twenty-first century, requiring individuals to adapt flexibly to new situations. Soft skills, such as problem-solving and communication skills, are becoming increasingly important for preparing students in higher education for future job opportunities. We conducted a bibliometric analysis of 4,358 research studies with the aim of guiding future research and practice. We sought to answer the following research question: What research themes involving soft skills are discussed in the literature, and what further research avenues can inform us about teaching soft skills? Given the interdisciplinary, cross-cutting nature of soft skills, we analysed research from various fields to uncover the relevance of and relationships among different soft skill topics and to identify which soft skill topics are particularly important in higher education settings. To help researchers develop a holistic approach to soft skills education, we provide a summary of existing soft skills research and identify directions for future research. In addition, we outline the evolution of keyword clusters to illuminate the future directions. This approach facilitates a deeper and more nuanced exploration of the relevant concepts. Our research supports practitioners and fosters a better understanding of the meaning of soft skills and how they can be taught in higher education, especially in digital environments.

Negotiating is relevant in private and work-life situations. Thus, negotiation skills are necessary and can be defined as a skill set, including skills such as problem-solving or communication. Negotiating with others is learned action-oriented and individually, making standard learning concepts less effective. Therefore, action-oriented and individual-adapted interactions are convenient but rarely available. Conversational agents seem to be a suitable solution to support the negotiation learning process so it can be more interactive and individualized. In this paper, we design a conversational agent that can act as a personal tutor and negotiation partner to support a learner in training negotiation skills. This paper presents evaluated design principles for designing conversational agents to foster learners’ negotiation skills. The theoretically grounded design principles contribute to the existing theory on learning negotiation skills. On a practical level, we offer a new way of negotiation training that focuses on individuality and interactivity while providing a comprehensive learning concept for learning negotiation skills. Finally, companies are guided in the design and development of negotiation agents.

The use of learning videos has grown dramatically in the last decades. However, there is also increasing criticism against the use of learning videos concerning the harmful effects on the learning process, such as a decrease in motivation, engagement, and learning success. Although interactive learning videos can be helpful in supporting students' learning process, the design of such videos is still challenging for instructional designers. To overcome these challenges, we follow a Design Science Research (DSR) approach and develop a design pattern-based process to support the development of interactive learning videos. To this end, we engage in multiple DSR cycles where we conduct a systematic literature review, collect practical and theoretical requirements, as well as develop and evaluate our artifact in two cycles. Finally, we codify our results into design patterns and a creation process for interactive learning videos. With our contribution, we make design knowledge for such learning materials accessible by including tangible and applicable practices during our interactive learning video creation process. Our contribution aims to support developers and educators in designing more effective learning videos.

The endless stream of social media newsfeeds and stories captivates users for hours on end, sometimes exceeding what users themselves consider unhealthy. However, reducing one's social media consumption has proven to be challenging. To address this issue, this study investigates how the co-creation of the digital feedback nudge can improve digital well-being without increasing privacy threats. To achieve this goal, a mixed method study is used through a two-week pre-post study design. Results demonstrate that co-creation significantly increased users' sense of agency, sense of accomplishment and perceived sense of privacy while reducing users' privacy concern. Furthermore, the feedback nudge allowed participants to significantly decrease their social media use.

Conversational agents (CAs) have come a long way from their first appearance in the 1960s to today's generative models. Continuous technological advancements such as statistical computing and large language models allow for an increasingly natural and effortless interaction, as well as domain-agnostic deployment opportunities. Ultimately, this evolution begs multiple questions: How have technical capabilities developed? How is the nature of work changed through humans' interaction with conversational agents? How has research framed dominant perceptions and depictions of such agents? And what is the path forward? To address these questions, we conducted a bibliometric study including over 5000 research articles on CAs. Based on a systematic analysis of keywords, topics, and author networks, we derive "five waves of CA research" that describe the past, present, and potential future of research on CAs. Our results highlight fundamental technical evolutions and theoretical paradigms in CA research. Therefore, we discuss the moderating role of big technologies, and novel technological advancements like OpenAI GPT or BLOOM NLU that mark the next frontier of CA research. We contribute to theory by laying out central research streams in CA research, and offer practical implications by highlighting the design and deployment opportunities of CAs.

After facing the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations request their employees to work from home permanently. For an organization, this provides positive benefits such as reducing costs for rent. From an employee perspective, working from home can cause a feeling of isolation towards co-workers and lower attachment to an organization. One way to counteract this problem is to transfer the office to the digital world, especially spurred by the metaverse discussion to represent processes of our real world in digital environments that allow us to do everything in the same way digitally as we are doing in the real world. In this paper, we present a theoretical model for conducting a 2x2 between-subject experiment to analyze how digital real-world meeting experiences influence team attachment and organizational commitment. We contribute to theories such as the need of belonging and transfer them to digital environments and provide practical implications for designing digital offices.