Research Roundup: February 2026

Dive into our monthly Research Roundup, showcasing the latest insights from the business education community to keep you informed of new and noteworthy industry trends. Here are this month’s selections:

Scaling Practice, Preserving Expertise

• Researchers: Mark Johnson, The University of Manchester; Elizabeth Maitland, University of Liverpool; Wolfgang Sofka, Copenhagen Business School
• Output: “Developing Judgement for Business: An AI-Based Model of Independent Management Learning,” Journal of Business Research, 2025
• Overview: What if artificial intelligence could strengthen managerial judgment instead of replacing it? In this study, researchers confront a central tension in business education. Most AI systems are built to deliver answers, yet management judgment depends on navigating uncertainty where no single answer exists. They define management judgment as the ability to distinguish between different types of uncertainty and choose a course of action without full information. Current AI tools often automate grading or content generation, but they struggle to provide the timely, personalized feedback that experiential learning requires.
  
  To address this gap, the authors introduce a ranking-based, explainable AI model grounded in adaptive comparative judgment, a method for evaluating performance through structured comparisons rather than fixed scores. By combining generative AI, comparative ranking, and interactive simulations, they aim to build greater skills in reflection and decision-making rather than faster assessment.
• Findings: The researchers demonstrate that a ranking-based AI system can, in principle, clearly separate strong work from weak work while highlighting performance boundary cases where even experts may disagree. In a preliminary demonstration of the model, six student essays were evaluated through 30 structured comparisons using generative AI. Instead of scoring each essay independently, the system compares two at a time and asks a simple question: Which one demonstrates stronger clarity, argumentation, synthesis, and use of examples?
  
  After repeating that process across all possible pairs, a ranking emerges. Essays that are consistently judged stronger rise to the top, while those that are difficult to distinguish sit near a defined cutoff, such as pass/fail. The system then flags these boundary cases for expert review and generates contextualized feedback explaining why one response ranks higher than another.
  
  For organizations investing in leadership development, the implication is measured but meaningful. AI can scale repeated practice and individualized feedback while reserving human expertise for the most ambiguous decisions.

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Branding With a Conscience

• Researchers: Amira Mukendi, Iain Davies, Anne Marie Doherty, University of Strathclyde; Sarah Glozer and Pierre McDonagh, University of Bath
• Output: “I Want to Be Honest … But How Much Can I Share?”: Sustainable Influencing and Experiences of Moral Residue,” Journal of Business Research, 2025
• Overview: Sustainable fashion influencers are often expected to model the very behavior they promote, yet their work depends on visibility, brand partnerships, and continued consumption. This study examines how these influencers navigate that tension. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews and 117 media articles, the researchers investigate what happens when sustainability principles conflict with commercial realities. They identify three recurring dilemmas: (anti)consumption, meaning how closely influencers’ purchasing behavior aligns with their stated values; (non)promotion, meaning whether to prioritize substantive sustainability content or algorithm-friendly posts; and (non)commercialization, meaning how to earn income without undermining a sustainability message.
  
  To explain the emotional aftermath of these trade-offs, the authors introduce the concept of moral residue, defined as the lingering guilt, doubt, or discomfort that remains after resolving an ethical conflict. The study asks what moral dilemmas sustainable fashion influencers face and how they manage them through communication.
• Findings: These dilemmas rarely disappear once a decision is made. Influencers describe feeling guilty when buying new items, frustrated when educational content receives less engagement, and uncomfortable when accepting brand deals that do not fully align with their standards. To manage this tension, they rely on three transparency management strategies identified in the study: confessing imperfections, concealing certain behaviors, or, in some cases, conning by deliberately presenting a more sustainable image than exists in reality.
  
  For example, some openly admit to buying from mainstream retailers to normalize imperfection, while others avoid posting about less sustainable purchases to protect credibility. The researchers show that honest disclosure can trigger criticism, reinforcing moral weakness and intensifying moral residue over time. As sustainability partnerships expand, credibility depends not only on what is promoted publicly but also on whether complexity is recognized and addressed behind the scenes.

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Fair Price or Deal Breaker?

• Researchers: Andreas Hinterhuber, Ca' Foscari University of Venice; Owais Khan, Aalto University
• Output: “The Psychology of Dynamic Pricing: How Personality Traits Shape Fairness Perceptions and Purchase Intentions in Tourism,” Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 2025
• Overview: A ski lift ticket that costs more on Saturday than on Tuesday can feel either reasonable or unfair, depending on who is buying it. This study examines the psychology of dynamic pricing, also known as revenue management or time-based pricing, and investigates why customers differ in their perceptions of fairness. Drawing on the five-factor model of personality traits—agreeableness, openness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and extraversion—the researchers analyzed how individual differences shape perceived price unfairness and purchase intentions.
  
  They conducted a survey of 1,627 skiers across Austria, Canada, Norway, and the United States, followed by a study with 206 participants from Italy and the United States. The objective was to determine how personality traits influence reactions to revenue management in the alpine skiing industry and how those reactions affect behavioral intentions.
• Findings: Across both studies, personality traits significantly predicted perceived unfairness of revenue management. Agreeableness and openness reduced perceived unfairness, while neuroticism increased it. Perceived unfairness had measurable consequences. It reduced purchase intent and increased what the study describes as a desire for revenge. The findings also show that personality traits, although not directly observable, strongly predict behavioral intentions and can be inferred from how customers react to managerial actions within a firm’s control.
  
  For business leaders, this suggests that dynamic pricing strategies should not be evaluated solely on revenue performance. Customer reactions signal perceptions of fairness that may influence future purchase behavior. For organizations expanding dynamic pricing, the opportunity lies in smarter personalization, balanced by transparent practices and disciplined oversight.

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How Personalization Turns Intrusive

• Researchers: Hyeongseok Kim and Seunghee Han, Chung-Ang University
• Output: “Triggering the Personalization Backfire Effect: The Moderating Role of Situational Privacy Concern,” Behavioral Sciences, 2025
• Overview: More data does not always mean more impact. This study examines when personalized marketing stops being helpful and becomes intrusive. The researchers explored what they call the personalization-privacy paradox, the tension between delivering relevant messages and triggering privacy concerns. In a controlled experiment with 360 consumers in South Korea, they tested three levels of personalization: a generic message, a moderately personalized message using non-personally identifiable information such as location, and a highly personalized message using personally identifiable information such as a customer’s name and recent purchase history.
  
  They also introduced situational privacy concern, meaning a temporary increase in worry about data misuse, by exposing some participants to news about major data breaches. The objective was to identify whether there is a tipping point at which increasing data intrusiveness produces what the authors term a backfire effect.
• Findings: When privacy concerns were low, greater personalization was associated with stronger intent to buy. The highly personalized message referencing the customer’s name and recent 100,000-KRW (70 USD) purchase generated purchase intention scores about 11 percent higher than the generic coupon message, while moderate location-based personalization increased intent by roughly 8 percent. However, after participants read about major data breaches, the pattern shifted. The moderate message offering a coupon at a nearby store performed about 8 percent better than the generic version, but the highly personalized message lost its advantage and performed no better than the control.
  
  In practical terms, explicitly referencing a customer’s identity and spending history became less persuasive once privacy risks were top of mind. Although the interaction effect was statistically small, the authors note that even single-digit percentage shifts in purchase intention can translate into meaningful revenue differences. This reinforces that the strategic question is not whether to personalize, but how far to go and when.

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The Trust Erosion Effect

• Researchers: Elham El-Shafie, Abdelmohsen Nassani, and Gadah Aljumah, King Saud University
• Output: “Understanding the Consequences of Toxic Leadership in the Business Sector: An Empirical Study in Saudi Arabia,” Arab Journal of Administration, 2025
• Overview: A single manager’s behavior can quietly shape an entire organization’s culture. This study examines how toxic leadership influences organizational trust, employee engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment across Saudi Arabia’s public and private sectors. Toxic leadership is determined through repeated behaviors such as public belittling, excessive control, favoritism, withholding critical information, and unpredictable conduct that leave employees feeling insecure rather than supported.
  
  Drawing on survey data from 211 employees across industries, the sample included 61 percent male respondents, with nearly 47 percent between the ages of 30 and 40. Responses were captured on a five-point Likert scale using validated items drawn from prior research. The aim was to clarify how toxic leadership relates to trust, engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.
• Findings: The results show a clear and interconnected pattern across these factors. Toxic leadership is significantly linked to lower trust and engagement, and it is negatively associated with job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Trust emerges when employees have confidence in their organization, engagement rises, satisfaction strengthens, and commitment deepens. Engagement also directly contributes to higher satisfaction and stronger commitment, while satisfaction further anchors employees to the organization.
  
  The study shows that leadership behavior operates as an upstream driver of retention, morale, and discretionary effort. For businesses focused on performance and continuity, preventing toxic patterns is not simply about culture management; it is about protecting the internal conditions that sustain commitment and long-term organizational resilience.

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