INTEREST CATEGORY: INNOVATION AND TECH
POSTING TYPE: Events

Author: Yogesh Dwivedi

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Announcement: A Virtual Seminar Series on The Digital Future for Business & Society: Emerging Perspectives on the Metaverse

This seminar series on “The Digital Future for Business & Society: Emerging Perspectives on the Metaverse” will present various perspectives from a number of leading expert speakers to highlight the opportunities and challenges posed by the rapid emergence of the metaverse. The seminar series will offer a timely and thought-provoking insight to the metaverse, its impact on the future of business, management and societal factors impacted by the growth, direction and widespread adoption of this new immersive technology.

This series is hosted jointly by Digital Futures for Sustainable Business & Society Research Group, School of Management, Swansea University, UK and Symbiosis Institute of Business Management Pune, India (Constituent of Symbiosis International (Deemed University), India). The series is supported by: Digital Marketing and Analytics SIG – Academy of Marketing (UK); Grenoble IAE-Graduate School of Management – a Grenoble INP school of the University of Grenoble Alpes; The e-Business and e-Government SIG – British Academy of Management (UK); and The UK Academy for Information Systems (UKAIS). Further details about this seminar series can be found at: https://www.swansea.ac.uk/som/research/researchcentres/metaverse-seminar-series/

The first seminar (on Surfing the Internet and Diving in the Metaverse: A Status Quo Analysis) in this series was delivered by Professor Philipp Rauschnabel, The Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany. For a limited period only, this talk is available to access freely at https://youtu.be/PNuasGZhzWU

The second seminar (on Engaging users in the Metaverse Applications in different industries) in this series was delivered by Professor Carlos Flavián, The University of Zaragoza, Spain. This talk is available to access freely at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ4uaIAYohA&t=3s

The details of the next upcoming seminar are as follows:

Zoom Registration Link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJArdeyhrz8qHtE7eN-f0pcGEZRI-rG62pAY

Date & Time: 15^th March 2023; 1 PM UK Time; 06:30 PM IST

Seminar Title: Metaverse: On the human aspects, privacy and value destruction

Speaker: Mr Jared Offei Lartey & Professor Anders Gustafsson, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway

Seminar Overview: Current technological advances for the metaverse suggests limitless opportunities for experiencing social interactions and economic exchanges. With the potential that almost anything that can be done in real life is possible to do in one form or perhaps even better in the metaverse (Dwivedi et al., 2022). While this has motivated a hype, investments and an increasing extension of presence from businesses into the metaverse, there is a need to fundamentally reflect on directing such a platform to serve our human needs to make us better off in aspects such  as social inclusion, sustainability, health, education, and minimizing the effects of our hedonic consumption. Moreover, we also need to assess the risks of privacy in the destruction of value created through the metaverse. In the talk we will share our thoughts on these important aspects as well as growing avenues for research to realize the full potential of the metaverse.

About Speakers  

Jared Offei Lartey is a doctoral candidate in Marketing at BI Norwegian Business School. His research interests focus on exploring technological practices through the lens of consumer culture, as well as topics related to privacy in smart services, consumer-object experiences, and wellbeing.

Anders Gustafsson is a professor of marketing at BI Norwegian Business School.  Dr Gustafsson is also a Distinguished Professorial Fellow at the University of Manchester’s Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS). Dr. Gustafsson is conducting research on customer satisfaction and loyalty, management of customer relationships, and consumer behavior. He has published articles in journals such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research. His research has traditionally been carried out in close collaboration with companies (eg. Ikea, ICA, Telia). He is the former editor in chief for Journal of Business Research. He was the first international president for AMA’s (American Marketing Association) academic council and he is also a recipient of the Christopher Lovelock Career Contributions to the Services Discipline Award. Recently, he has joined The Sheth Foundation and AMA as a member of the board.