David Bourdin from the Department of Communication at FHWien der WKW presented his latest research findings to an international audience of researchers at the “French-Austrian-German Workshop on Consumer Behavior”.
The sixth edition of the “French-Austrian-German Workshop on Consumer Behavior” was hosted by the Université de Lorraine in Nancy (France) from November 21 to 22, 2019. As a platform for a fruitful academic exchange, this event promotes networking between French, Austrian and German researchers. After an evaluation process, around 50 people were invited to present their research results. David Bourdin (Teaching & Research Associate at the Competence Center for Marketing) represented the Department of Communication at FHWien der WKW.
David Bourdin presented his research project “The Influence of Employee Accent on Customer Participation in Services”. The results of the empirical studies carried out jointly with Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christina Sichtmann (Associate Professor at the Chair of International Marketing at the University of Vienna) show that a negative foreign accent of a service employee has negative effects on customer participation (i.e. the extent to which customers contribute to the service process by bringing in effort, knowledge, information and material resources), while an accent with positive connotations has no significant influence. In this context, the acoustic intelligibility of the employee and the perceived attractiveness of the person due to the accent play an important role.
David Bourdin’s participation in this year’s “French-Austrian-German Workshop on Consumer Behavior” in France enabled him to gain innovative ideas for further research projects, establish new contacts with researchers at international universities, and strengthen the reputation of FHWien der WKW in the academic community.