Toulouse School of Economics
Abstract
We study a dynamic reputation model with a fixed posted price where only
purchases are public. A long-lived seller chooses costly quality; each buyer
observes the purchase history and a private signal. Under a Markov selection,
beliefs split into two cascades - where actions are unresponsive and investment
is zero - and an interior region where the seller invests. The policy is
inverse-U in reputation and produces two patterns: Early Resolution (rapid
absorption at the optimistic cascade) and Double Hump (two investment
episodes). Higher signal precision at fixed prices enlarges cascades and can
reduce investment. We compare welfare and analyze two design levers: flexible
pricing, which can keep actions informative and remove cascades for patient
sellers, and public outcome disclosure, which makes purchases more informative
and expands investment.
ad-artists GmbH
Abstract
This paper introduces a novel approach to tackle the challenges of preserving
and transferring tacit knowledge--deep, experience-based insights that are hard
to articulate but vital for decision-making, innovation, and problem-solving.
Traditional methods rely heavily on human facilitators, which, while effective,
are resource-intensive and lack scalability. A promising alternative is the use
of Socially Interactive Agents (SIAs) as AI-driven knowledge transfer
facilitators. These agents interact autonomously and socially intelligently
with users through multimodal behaviors (verbal, paraverbal, nonverbal),
simulating expert roles in various organizational contexts. SIAs engage
employees in empathic, natural-language dialogues, helping them externalize
insights that might otherwise remain unspoken. Their success hinges on building
trust, as employees are often hesitant to share tacit knowledge without
assurance of confidentiality and appreciation. Key technologies include Large
Language Models (LLMs) for generating context-relevant dialogue,
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to integrate organizational knowledge, and
Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting to guide structured reflection. These enable
SIAs to actively elicit knowledge, uncover implicit assumptions, and connect
insights to broader organizational contexts. Potential applications span
onboarding, where SIAs support personalized guidance and introductions, and
knowledge retention, where they conduct structured interviews with retiring
experts to capture heuristics behind decisions. Success depends on addressing
ethical and operational challenges such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and
resistance to AI. Transparency, robust validation, and a culture of trust are
essential to mitigate these risks.