Darius-Aurel Frank
Associate Professor, CEO, PhD
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Recent publications
Recent publications
The Healthy Aging and Service Firms: The Promise of Smart Technologies
The Healthy Aging and Service Firms: The Promise of Smart Technologies
The global aging population represents an untapped growth market for service firms, particularly those focusing on healthy older adults. This conceptual paper introduces the healthy aging as an underexplored consumer group, emphasizing their diverse needs related to sensory, cognitive, and socio-emotional changes. It explores how service firms can leverage smart technologies (e.g. intelligent automation, artificial intelligence, and service robots) to enhance customer experiences tailored specifically for this demographic.
Highlights:
Healthy older adults (65+) represent a rapidly growing and economically significant consumer segment.
Smart technologies (AI, intelligent automation, service robots) can significantly enhance their customer experience by accommodating older consumers' evolving sensory, cognitive, and socio-emotional capacities.
Technological innovations can provide tailored, enjoyable, and convenient experiences in both physical and digital settings.
Successful adaptation requires addressing age-related stereotypes and prioritizing personalized, inclusive service designs.
Ready to future-proof your services for the healthy aging?
Exploring Consumer Acceptance of AI Under Self-Threats & High-Stakes
Exploring Consumer Acceptance of AI Under Self-Threats & High-Stakes
In an era of transformation fueled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), human resistance to adopt this powerful technology has emerged as one of its most critical barriers. In a series of four studies with almost 4,000 consumers, this paper explores factors that contribute to consumer reluctance toward AI through theories related to algorithm aversion, decision-making under risk, and compensatory decision-making.
Highlights:
Consumers show persistent bias against advice from AI agents
High decision stakes lead consumers to prefer human advice over AI advice
This effect is more (less) pronounced in medical (legal, retail) decisions
Perceived self-threat influences AI advice acceptance, particularly in high-stakes decisions
AI combined with human agents shows mixed but more positive results
Ready to future proof your AI service agents?
How the Presence of Employee Avatars Affects Consumers' Shopping Behavior in Virtual Reality
How the Presence of Employee Avatars Affects Consumers' Shopping Behavior in Virtual Reality
Brands are increasingly leveraging the metaverse to promote their products and services, yet the social influence of avatars in this realm remains largely unexplored. Our latest research reveals that both human and robotic employee avatars can significantly affect purchasing decisions in virtual shopping environments, particularly for embarrassing products.
Highlights:
Both human and robotic employee avatars reduce consumer purchase behavior, including time and money spent, in embarrassing metaverse contexts
Consumers recall the brand of embarrassing products less but are more likely to remember the sale in the presence of avatar employees
The negative impact of avatars is significant in embarrassing settings but not in non-embarrassing ones
Marketers should avoid using avatars to promote embarrassing products in the metaverse
Ready to optimize your virtual avatar sales promotions?
Unveiling Metaverse Memory Processes
Unveiling Metaverse Memory Processes
Apple's Vision Pro impresses not only with its build quality but also fidelity. This made us wonder how high (vs. low) visual fidelity may affect consumer responses to virtual brand and product experiences. Below, we present results of our most recent study comparing high (vs. low) fidelity on consumers' memory performance in a VR shopping setting.
Highlights:
Visual fidelity of VR headsets and task affect memory performance and spending
Higher visual fidelity increases explicit memory performance
Lower visual fidelity increases implicit memory performance for browsing tasks
In-store spending decreases with higher explicit memory performance
Ready to optimize your customers' virtual user experience?
Recent events
Recent events
Speaker at the 19th International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management
June 3-6, 2025, Rome, ItalySpeaker at the 19th International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management
Building on the most recent Danish Innovation Index data, my talk explored how key sustainability performance dimensions—from customer and economic sustainability to the more challenging areas of social and environmental responsibility—relate to overall company innovativeness for 80 companies operating consumer-oriented services across 20 industries in Denmark.
Speaker at EMAC 2025, 54th Annual Conference of the European Marketing Academy
May 25-30, 2025, Madrid, SpainSpeaker at EMAC 2025, 54th Annual Conference of the European Marketing Academy
At the 54th Annual Conference of the European Marketing Academy in Pozuelo de Alarcón, (Madrid) themed "Human and Smart Marketing: Understanding and Enhancing Our Future," I held and contributed to sessions on smart technologies and service, customer experiences in virtual worlds, as well as the future of human marketing and AI-generated marketing.
Recent projects
Recent projects
VR Shall See
August 2024 – December 2025VR Shall See
In this project, researchers from the departments of Management and Computer Science, Aarhus University, and Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions e.V. explore 3D navigation paradigms and their effects on consumer behavior at the point of sale in virtual worlds.
VR Unpacked
August 2024 – January 2025VR Unpacked
In this project, an expert team of researchers from the Department of Management, Aarhus University, joins forces with Normal A/S to validate the effectiveness of virtual reality onboarding and training on employee' task performance and job satisfaction.
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