讲座题目：The Empathy Trap: Reactance Against Empathic Chatbots in Customer Service

讲座时间：4月9日（周四）13:30-14:30

讲座地点：商学院大楼216教室

主讲人：张晗教授（香港浸会大学）

主持人：李嘉教授

讲座摘要：

The advance of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies has enabled chatbots to be emotionally responsive. In customer service, expressing empathy is a critical component of employee emotional responsiveness and a popular recovery strategy following service failure. However, the impact of empathy expressed by a chatbot is less clear. In this research, we investigate how and why chatbot-expressed empathy after service failure may influence customers’ service evaluations differently. Extending the psychological reactance literature, we propose that an empathic chatbot may trigger customer reactance due to the unique nature of AI chatbots (vs. humans). We further propose that the triggered reactance can undermine perceptions of a chatbot’s competence and warmth, ultimately hurting service evaluations. We conducted three laboratory experiments to test these predictions. Our theoretical framework and findings illuminate the more nuanced and distinct role of empathy expressed by AI chatbots, and they suggest a critical need for chatbot developers and companies deploying chatbots to be aware of user reactance in customer service.

主讲人简介：

张晗博士现任香港浸会大学工商管理学院院长和信息系统讲座教授。他曾担任美国佐治亚理工学院商学院信息技术管理终身教授，Steven A. Denning技术与管理讲座教授。张晗教授于德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校取得信息系统博士学位，主要研究领域为网上信任和声誉、在线口碑、人机交互和在线医疗。他的学术论文发表在MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Production and Operations Management等国际顶级期刊。张晗教授的研究成果曾被中国的《第一财经日报》和美国的《华尔街日报》专题报道。张晗教授目前担任国际著名学术期刊Information & Management 的主编（Editor-in-Chief），并担任MIS Quarterly和Journal of Information Systems and E-Business Management两本学术期刊的高级编辑（Senior Editor）。作为联合创始人，张晗教授在2007年创办了China Summer Workshop on Information Management（CSWIM）。张晗教授在2023年荣获AIS (Association for Information Systems) Fellow奖，在2025年荣获INFORMS ISS (Information Systems Society) Distinguished Fellow 奖。他是国际信息系统领域首位同时获得AIS Fellow 和INFORMS ISS Distinguished Fellow两项殊荣的华人学者。