Robo-advisors, also known as robo-advisory services, significantly reshape customer service in financial advisory industries, transforming retail investor markets by substituting human financial advisory experts with artificial intelligence empowered services. However, existing literature remains scattered across disciplines, with theories on financial customer service predominantly focused on Internet banking, neglecting artificial intelligence empowered interactions. Thus, service providers need a framework for implementing robo-advisors in frontline service and researchers require an advanced agenda to stimulate future research. Through a systematic, interdisciplinary literature review based on Belanche et al.’s service robot framework, this article contextualizes service robot theories into financial advisory services, synthesizing knowledge on artificial intelligence empowered customer service. We contribute to literature on service robots by contextualizing, refining, and extending the original framework by Belanche et al. and by developing a research agenda with critical perspectives. Moreover, the study yields practical and theoretical insights into artificial intelligence empowered financial advisory services.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between formal ethics and ethics in practice in the empirical context of real estate agents (REAs) working in the residential housing market, including owner-occupied houses and owner-occupied apartments, in Sweden. The paper investigates problems with the Swedish middleman model of real estate agency with regard to the acceptance among REAs of borderline professional behavior.

Design/methodology/approach: We report on a survey distributed to all Swedish licensed residential REAs to investigate their attitudes towards eight scenarios displaying borderline ethical behavior. Firstly, the means of each scenario were calculated, investigating signs of distance between formal ethics and ethics in practice. Secondly, logistic regressions were run for each scenario separately, thereby investigating factors affecting misconduct among REAs.

Findings: The empirical results show a clear difference between formal ethics and ethics in practice and also illustrate that some scenarios of borderline ethical behavior are creating greater problems for the REAs.

Practical implications: In Sweden, the seller is the principal, assigning the REA to sell a house or apartment, but the regulation is clear on the role of the licensed REA as responsible for promoting an informed and fair sales process where the buyer is safe to act without their own representative. Our study contributes with information to policymakers on possible areas for the development of the middleman model.

Originality/value: The paper is the first to empirically investigate the middleman model of a Swedish real estate agency in relation to the business ethics of the agents. The use of scenarios in close relation to the everyday working context of REAs as tests of ethics of practice is also of original methodological value to investigate possible diversions of professionals from national regulations.

AI-empowered and algorithm-driven automated financial advisory systems, also known as Robo-advisors, have been rapidly implemented by service providers and customers in financial service markets. Yet, few empirical studies investigate customers’ experience interacting with fully functional Robo-advisors in real-life scenarios. Also, it is still unknown how the design of the automated system can affect customers’ perception and adoption of this new technology. To mitigate these gaps, 24 participants with different levels of experience and understanding of financial investment were asked to use a Robo-advisor from a retail bank and perform the tasks. By conducting observations and retrospective post-test interviews, we find that participants do not fully perceive the social aspects supposed to be provided by Robo-advisors. The overarching problems are, among others, a lack of transparency and incomprehensible information. This results in distrust of the results generated by this system, which negatively affects customers’ adoption of the investment advice provided by the Robo-advisor. The potential of interactive data visualization is also detected. This work contributes to the understanding of customers regarding their perception and adoption based on their use of a functional Robo-advisor and proposes design takeaways for transparent and comprehensible automated advisory systems in financial service contexts.

As climate-related issues are important and concern all aspects of the built environment, there is a need to better understand the motives underlying household recycling behavior. The purpose of the present study is twofold: to investigate factors important for explaining the recycling behavior of young people and to explore respondents' own ideas regarding barriers to recycling. This paper reports on a survey conducted from 2020 to 2021 among residents of student housing in Stockholm, Sweden. Eight hypotheses were formulated based on earlier research and a model was constructed. Answers from 1202 respondents were first analyzed by logistic regression to test factors affecting respondents' self-reported recycling of paper, plastic, glass, and metal. Results show that the full model containing all predictors was statistically significant. The results showed that only four of the hypotheses were confirmed. Positive attitude toward recycling, personal norms, perceived behavioral control, and perceived convenience of recycling are positively affecting recycling behavior. In addition, 673 open answers were analyzed to provide information on unforeseen factors of importance for recycling behavior. This study adds to research by testing factors affecting recycling behaviors in a national context and by identifying new possible factors of importance. The results are also of benefit to business practitioners within the construction sector or within facility management in identifying activities that would add to sustainable development.

The increasing role of individual investors in supporting the achievement of sustainable development goals through sustainable investment has gained growing interest from financial authorities and the research community. Digitalization in the financial sector, e.g., robo-advisors, enables lay-investors to make sustainable investments in a simple and convenient way. This study investigates whether investment-related attitudes and demographic profiles are related to robo-advisor clients' sustainable investment choices. This paper describes an empirical study that uses a logistic regression model to investigate sustainable investment preferences at the individual investor level. Cross-sectional data consisting of 27,771 individual investors in Sweden, Norway, and Finland, who purchased investment products through a robo-advisor application, are used in this study. The results suggest that, concerning investment-related attitudes, robo-advisor clients with low-risk tolerance and a short investment horizon are more likely to choose to become sustainable investors. Furthermore, sustainable investments are preferred by robo-advisor clients who are less wealthy, female, and older.

Vi är gemensamt intresserade av vad som påverkar återvinningsbeteende och har

genomfört denna enkätstudie i syfte att lära mer om studentboendes attityder till

återvinning och möjliga faktorer som påverkar de boende att avfallssortera för

återvinning. Vi har formulerat en enkät där våra frågor baserat på tidigare forskning. I

tidigare studier har olika faktorer visat sig statistiskt signifikanta när det gäller att

förklara boendes återvinningsbeteende. Vi har därför valt att använda frågebatterier

som verifierats av andra, så att vi kan anta att våra frågor mäter vad de avser mäta. Det

innebär också att vi kan jämföra våra resultat med andras. Förutom detta består

enkäten också av några bakgrundsfrågor baserade på att kön, ålder och

ämnesinriktning (studier eller arbete) har visat att dessa är statistiskt signifikanta för

val att avfallssortera. Enkäten har, administrerat av Stockholms studentbostäder, sänts

till samtliga hyresgäster i 25 studentbostadsområden i Stockholm i december 2020 –

januari 2021. Tiden sammanföll med en pandemi som sannolikt påverkat studien.

Supported by the notion of concept-driven design and design-based research, as well as the tradition of critical pedagogy and the idea of sociomaterialism, the aim of this article is to explore and develop a didactic tool for education in personal finance to be used within the formal education system. The object studied is an artefact for teaching about personal finance among Swedish middle school pupils in the subject area Home and Consumer Studies (HCS). We define personal finance as economizing with (limited) private resources.

In this article, we (a) describe the process of developing a prototype for teaching about personal finance and (b) discuss qualities of platform and content in relation to such an artefact. The design process is based on three assumptions (Hernwall & Söderberg, 2019): in contrast to many statistical/assessment studies, children this age have at least an initial understanding of basic principles of personal finances and of economizing; HCS teacher education in Sweden has little (to no) focus on personal finance; and Swedish HCS teachers are confronted with an almost complete lack of teaching material in the domain.

Conceptualized as a design-based research methodology, the focus is therefore a didactic interest in supporting teachers’ possibilities to teach personal finances to their pupils in a way that supports learning based on the pupils’ own understanding of the basic principles of economization. Framed by design-based research, the artefact developed within the project is a prototype of a digital tool to be used as a teacher support in teaching about personal finance. One acknowledged aspect of the use of digital tools is that they allow multimodal literacy. The development of a prototype with the purpose of creating a tool for teaching about personal finance followed an iterative cycle of three stages and four interpretative revisions.

The parallel process of developing and testing a technological artefact has resulted in seven proto-theories on essential qualities for a didactic tool that supports learning about personal finance. This entails not only the appropriation of economy as “economization with (limited) resources”, but also guides the transition from understanding to a useful repertoire of teaching activities.