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Advances in autonomous technology have transformed customer experience. Most prior research has investigated the effect of augmented reality (AR) on purchase intention, yet few research has discussed the effect of semiautonomous AR in the context of service use. Semiautonomous AR recognizes content in the present reality, inserts and adjusts virtual content, supervises the users and enables them to feel in control of the virtual content overlaid in observed reality resulting in enriched user experience and thereby augmentation experience. This research demonstrates how perceived control of virtual content leads to higher perceived augmentation experiences among semiautonomous AR users than among non-AR users. In addition, this research examines the mediation effects of enriched user experience and perceived augmentation experience on user satisfaction and users’ willingness to continue using AR. Results also indicate that AR users perceive a higher augmentation experience than non-AR users. However, users’ willingness to continue using AR is not significantly different between AR and non-AR users.

This study derives six hypotheses and uses a preliminary study, a field study and a lab study to evaluate the hypotheses. A field study was conducted in a car dealership to test the hypotheses, and a lab experiment was conducted in a controlled setting to corroborate the results obtained in the field study and test the underlying causal effects.

Semiautonomous AR can constantly sense, plan and not necessarily always act over the virtual content to sustain the interaction with its users. Perceived control of virtual content enhances perceived augmentation experience, and its effect of perceived control of virtual content on perceived augmentation experience is higher among semiautonomous AR users than among non-AR users. Perceived control of virtual content is a key to enriched user experience, augmentation experience and thereby users’ attitude and behavior. In addition, results showed that enriched user experience mediates the effect of perceived control of virtual content on perceived augmentation. User satisfaction mediates the effect of perceived augmentation experience on users’ willingness to continue using AR. The theoretical and practical contributions are comprehensively discussed.

Some limitations of the studies are ascertained. First, a larger sample size might be required to achieve generalizability and a strong test of the applied theory. Second, new field studies can reflect customers’ real attitudes and behaviors so as to reveal realistic interactions between the device properties and the human will in solving actual problems. The user is interested in participating in the solution within the sensing-planning-acting process as depicted by this research. Third, new research to test AR’s capabilities in bounded and symbiotic conditions can illustrate the level of autonomy each type requires, providing additional insights into why supervised AR autonomy best reflects semiautonomous AR. The pioneering structural model offered in this study (perceived control of virtual content-perceived augmentation experience-users’ satisfaction-users’ willingness to continue using AR) should be tested with new samples in other industries, aside from including other variables that may enrich the model and increase its explanatory power. In addition, future research might use other AR devices such as smart glasses to explore the effects of AR on perceived control of virtual content, enriched user experience and perceived augmentation experience. Future studies can investigate the effect of auditory and visual augmentation on enriched user experience and perceived augmentation experience, and involve features of artificial intelligence (AI) to assist users in decision-making. Regarding context, this research showed that age and gender differences did not affect the results. Nonetheless, age and gender, and perhaps additional demographic characteristics, may concern future studies.

Some recommendations for technology developers are derived from this research. AR is revolutionizing service experience. As technologies are becoming autonomous, developers seek ways to design experiences to enhance consumers’ sense of control over their interaction with such systems. Companies cannot create customer experience (Becker and Jaakkola, 2020), yet they can leverage the level of autonomy in AR to sustain ongoing interaction with customers. It is vital to design an autonomous AR that focuses on users’ needs, desires and well-being (de Bellis and Johar, 2020) that drive novel experiences (Novak and Hoffman, 2019). This study recommends AR developers design autonomous features in AR that enable customers to interact with the virtual contents generated by AR and extend their own capabilities to perform a task and feel expanded. While designing a fully autonomous system may hinder users to feel in control of their choice (Schmitt, 2019), service companies can develop an AR system that sustains an interaction, involves the user in value co-creation and guides the user (Alimamy and Gnoth, 2022). AR can sustain an interaction with the users by continuously scanning the objects in the reality and providing sensory feedback such as product size recommendations (e.g. eyeglasses) that facilitate customers’ information processing (Poushneh, 2021b; Heller et al., 2019). To achieve this, developers may focus on technology qualities such as “image recognition,” a subset of AI. With image recognition, AR can effectively provide instruction as if the customer is in a real setting. The proper incorporation of image recognition in the design of AR while enabling users to interact with 3D virtual images sustains their interaction with AR and makes them feel in control of their interaction with AR. Service companies need to ensure users feel in control of their interaction and expand their capacities to engage in the service experience with AR to accomplish their desired tasks. AR’s capacities enable users to expand their abilities to fix their basic service problems without referring to or speaking to a service provider agent in a service context. Therefore, instead of taking their car back to the dealership, customers can use AR mobile applications or glasses provided by car manufacturers to learn and fix basic vehicle problems.

This research advances the marketing literature on how users feel in control of virtual content when they interact with a semiautonomous AR that subsequently influences enriched user experience, perceived augmentation experience, attitudes and behavior.

This paper aims to examine the management controls that support (and fail to support) a craft brewery’s servitization journey from start-up, through growth, to maturity. It enriches our understanding of how management controls can facilitate the discovery of a service-identity that provides the foundation for servitization.

Drawing on in-depth interviews, fieldwork and secondary data analyses, this paper reports on a longitudinal case study of a craft brewery. The authors trace the case company’s servitization journey using a service-dominant logic theoretical perspective. This perspective focuses us on how the value of a product is cocreated with customers, rather than being created by the firm and then distributed.

The study found that many management controls emerged at the craft brewery from start-up to maturity. Some management controls supported a goods logic, while others supported a service logic. The findings highlight how people and cultural controls in particular enabled the company to move toward a service logic focused on servitization. These management controls informed the evolution of offerings, structure reconfiguration and resources at the craft brewery necessary to support servitization.

Studying a craft brewery contributes an alternative type of manufacturing context and shows how service-identity features such as craftiness, collectiveness, neolocalism and innovation affect a company’s servitization journey.

To ensure the stability of the flying wing layout unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) during flight, this paper uses the radial basis function neural network model to analyse the stability of the aforementioned aircraft.

This paper uses a linear sliding mode control algorithm to analyse the stability of the UAV's attitude in a level flight state. In addition, a wind-resistant control algorithm based on the estimation of wind disturbance with a radial basis function neural network is proposed. Through the modelling of the flying wing layout UAV, the stability characteristics of a sample UAV are analysed based on the simulation data. The stability characteristics of the sample UAV are analysed based on the simulation data.

The simulation results indicate that the UAV with a flying wing layout has a short fuselage, no tail with a horizontal stabilising surface and the aerodynamic focus of the fuselage and the centre of gravity is nearby, which is indicative of longitudinal static instability. In addition, the absence of a drogue tail and the reliance on ailerons and a swept-back angle for stability result in a lack of stability in the transverse direction, whereas the presence of stability in the transverse direction is observed.

The analysis of the stability characteristics of the sample aircraft provides the foundation for the subsequent establishment of the control model for the flying wing layout UAV.

This study proposes a framework that demonstrates how the perceived value of augmented reality (AR) shopping influences the formation of psychological ownership of product and technology. The mediating role of flow experience and the moderating role of perceived control are identified.

An online survey study recruiting 480 participants who experienced AR shopping was conducted to test the hypotheses.

Functional value is negatively related to psychological ownership of product and technology whereas emotional value shows opposite effects. Flow experience mediates the relationships between functional/emotional value and psychological ownership of product and technology. Perceived control moderates the relationship between emotional value and flow experience, as well as the relationship between functional/emotional value and psychological ownership of product and technology.

The findings suggest the importance of AR’s functional and emotional values in developing psychological ownership of product and technology. To mitigate the negative effect of functional value, AR designers should focus on creating emotionally engaging apps that induce a flow experience, thereby enhancing psychological ownership. Furthermore, AR apps should be designed to empower users with a sense of control in the AR experience.

This research contributes to the AR and psychological ownership literature. It introduces a model that can explain both the formation of psychological ownership of product and psychological ownership of technology, thereby expanding the current understanding. By adding perceived values as antecedents of psychological ownership, it enriches the psychological ownership literature. Moreover, it enhances the flow experience literature by demonstrating the role of flow experience in the formation of psychological ownership of product and technology.

Motivated by the severe impact of global supply chain disruptions and the lack of understanding of supply chain resilience from an SME exporter perspective in the international marketing literature, this paper sets out to explore how SME exporters achieve resilience through strategic choices related to sourcing and manufacturing during global disruptions.

The study adopts a qualitative, multiple-case-studies approach to identify the key strategic drivers and contextual factors influencing SME exporters’ supply chain resilience. Our study adopted an SME exporter perspective and featured an unprecedented global supply chain disruption context. New Zealand (NZ) was chosen as the key home country context for the participants of this study. Five NZ SME exporters were selected for our case studies.

This study redefines buffering, bridging and a mixed strategy for an SME exporter facing global supply chain disruptions. SME exporters with high situational control are likely to pursue a buffering strategy that reduces their resource dependence on foreign suppliers and their reliance on information support from these suppliers. In contrast, when the firm perceives little control over the supply chain, it will decide upon a bridging strategy that aims to build solid relationships with supply chain partners. Exporters opt for a mixed strategy when they do not see themselves clearly in high or low situational control.

As global disruptions arise and evolve, supply chain uncertainty and exporters’ sense of situational control manifest differently across industries, product lines, markets and sourcing countries. It is essential to understand that firms can choose a mixed strategy based on these supply chain conditions. While our study was fortuitously timed, conducting multi-country studies could provide more comparative insights that transcend national borders. Additionally, our study did not examine organizational and capability-based factors. Future research may benefit from exploring how an SME exporter develops strategic capabilities to achieve resilience over its lifetime.

Businesses see survival as the most pivotal concern during a global supply chain disruption. Many companies have had to make on-the-spot decisions about whether they should shift or redesign their supply chains in the middle of a global disruption. There is no “best strategy” for an SME exporter to take. Rather, managers should make strategic decisions based on how much control or influence they have over a particular part of their supply chain. The level of control is determined by the SME exporter’s overall resource dependencies and information needs in particular parts of their supply chain.

We adopt resource dependence theory and information processing theory to guide our study and place exporters' situational control in the centre of drivers to firms' strategic choices during global disruptions. We make a novel attempt to incorporate the contextual conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic into the theorization of supply chain resilience. We make managerial recommendations to help SME exporters navigate global supply chain disruption challenges.

Motivated by the importance of gaining an understanding of the flow of transactions when assessing the effectiveness of internal controls for Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) compliance, concerns raised by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) of audit firm deficiencies in these areas and auditors’ use of both narratives and flowcharts to document the flow of transactions, this article aims to examine the impact of auditors creating flowcharts versus narratives on auditors’ transaction flow understanding and internal control evaluation performance.

This paper conducts a between-participants experiment examining auditor-created flowcharts versus narratives and different levels of documentation quality on auditors’ understanding of the flow of transactions and internal control evaluation performance.

This paper finds that auditors who create flowcharts gain a better understanding of the clients’ transaction flow and perform better on internal control evaluations than auditors who create narratives. Process results from a moderated-mediation model also show a moderating effect of quality and mediating effect of understanding.

These findings inform PCAOB policy decisions and inspection efforts and audit firms’ quality and process improvement efforts by providing initial support for having auditors create flowcharts to improve their understanding of the flow of transactions and internal control evaluation performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the effect of auditor-created flowcharts compared to narratives on auditors’ understanding of the flow of transactions and internal control evaluation performance.

This paper aims to extend insights about the relationship between inter-organizational collaboration and approaches to control from the perspective of decision-makers. We investigate the relationship between approaches to control and intended forms of integration between actors responsible for solving the complex problem of integrated person-centered care for elderly with diverse and significant needs.

The empirical study is based on a content analysis of contractual agreements. We have analyzed a total of 118 collaboration agreements and associative documents between all Swedish regions and municipalities.

The study shows that intended integration is subject to remarkable variation in intended forms of inter-organizational collaboration in this Swedish case. The paper illustrates that decision-makers’ intentions with proposed collaboration in each given context are important for the chosen approach to control. Regardless of intended forms of integration, our study suggests that an imminent soft approach to control is expressed alongside limited signs of hard control. Various forms of intended integration can be managed by the two approaches simultaneously insofar as the agreements appear to have a two-sided purpose.

Our paper proposes an empirically driven taxonomy of intended forms of integration initiatives. The taxonomy provides resources for studies about how collaboration can be managed when it is stipulated by national legislation but local self-governance gives actors considerable freedom to decide on how to organize and manage services. By presenting the taxonomy and relating this to approaches of control, our iterative study builds on and adds to a recent stream of research arguing that the relationship between collaboration and approaches to control may by fuzzier and more complex than originally thought.

Autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is widely used in resource prospection and underwater detection due to its excellent performance. This study considers input saturation, nonlinear model uncertainties and external ocean current disturbances. The containment errors can be limited to a small neighborhood of zero in finite time by employing control strategy. The control strategy can keep errors within a certain range between the trajectory followed by AUVs and their intended targets. This can mitigate the issues of collisions and disruptions in communication which may arise from AUVs being in close proximity or excessively distant from each other.

The tracking errors are constrained. Based on the directed communication topology, a cooperative formation control algorithm for multi-AUV systems with constrained errors is designed. By using the saturation function, state observers are designed to estimate the AUV’s velocity in six degrees of freedom. A new virtual control algorithm is designed through combining backstepping technique and the tan-type barrier Lyapunov function. Neural networks are used to estimate and compensate for the nonlinear model uncertainties and external ocean current disturbances. A neural network adaptive law is designed.

The containment errors can be limited to a small neighborhood of zero in finite time so that follower AUVs can arrive at the convex hull consisting of leader AUVs within finite time. The validity of the results is indicated by simulations.

The state observers are designed to approximate the speed of the AUV and improve the accuracy of the control method. The anti-saturation function and neural network adaptive law are designed to deal with input saturation and general disturbances, respectively. It can ensure the safety and reliability of the multiple AUV systems.

Dynamically tracking the target by unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) plays a critical role in mobile drone recovery. This study aims to solve this challenge under diverse random disturbances, proposing a dynamic target tracking framework for UGVs based on target state estimation, trajectory prediction, and UGV control.

To mitigate the adverse effects of noise contamination in target detection, the authors use the extended Kalman filter (EKF) to improve the accuracy of locating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Furthermore, a robust motion prediction algorithm based on polynomial fitting is developed to reduce the impact of trajectory jitter caused by crosswinds, enhancing the stability of drone trajectory prediction. Regarding UGV control, a dynamic vehicle model featuring independent front and rear wheel steering is derived. Additionally, a linear time-varying model predictive control algorithm is proposed to minimize tracking errors for the UGV.

To validate the feasibility of the framework, the algorithms were deployed on the designed UGV. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed dynamic tracking algorithm of UGV under random disturbances.

This paper proposes a tracking framework of UGV based on target state estimation, trajectory prediction and UGV predictive control, enabling the system to achieve dynamic tracking to the UAV under multiple disturbance conditions.

The null-space projection method is commonly adopted for controlling redundant robots, which undoubtedly requires the robot Jacobian matrix inverse. This paper aims to provide a novel control scheme, which enables null-space control of redundant robots without conflict with the main task space.

In this paper, an impedance-based null-space control approach for redundant robots is proposed. The null-space degrees of freedom are separated from the primary task space by using the eigenvalue decomposition. Then, a joint impedance controller spans the null space and is reflected into the joint space to manage the redundancy. Finally, several experiments have been conducted to evaluate and validate the performance of the proposed approach in comparison with the null-space projection method under various situations.

Experiment results show that no significant differences were observed between the different filling eigenvalues in the proposed approach under different null-space dimensions and motion velocity. Besides, comparative experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve comparable results to the null-space projection method. Nevertheless, the suggested approach has benefits regarding the quantity of control parameters in addition to not requiring a Jacobian inverse. Notably, the performance of the proposed method will improve as the null-space dimension increases.

This study presents a new control method for redundant robots, which has advantages for dealing with the problems of controlling redundant robots compared to the existing methods.