AI recommendation service is adopted in consumption consulting such as high-tech and fashion consumption (Thapliyal & Ahuj, 2021). Now, for high-tech and fashion products, the advance selling strategy is widely adopted. Thus, this study targets to detective the consumers’ preference toward AI agents comparing human agents under advance selling and spot selling. The independent variable of this study is consumption type: Pre-sale Products vs. Spot Products. Pre-sale Products are quite popular currently, especially technological products. Construal-level theory (CLT) offers a valuable framework to explain the mechanisms that trigger evaluations, predictions, and behaviors by linking the degree of mental abstraction (the construal level) to psychological distance (Trope & Liberman, 2000; 2003; 2010). Four dimensions including temporal, special, social, and probability distance are argued to present the psychological distance (Trope et al., 2007). Liberman et al. (2022) discuss the time distance and argue the distant-future events are represented in a more abstract, structured, high-level manner than near-future events. Kim & Duhachek (2020) draw on a dimension of persuasion by AI agents to posit that AI agents are perceived as low-construal agents because of the fact that people hold a lay theory that AI agents do not have superordinate goals and cannot learn from their experiences or possess consciousness like humans do. Consequently, they find that individuals perceive greater appropriateness and are more persuaded when an AI agent’s persuasive messages highlight low-construal as opposed to high-construal features. Moreover, consumers prefer abstract information related to a certain product rather than concrete information when a purchase is to take place in the distant future or when construal levels are high (Hernandez et al., 2015). Thus, this research hypothesizes: When consumers buy pre-sale products (vs. spot products), human agents will be the more favorable service provider than AI agents since the consumer is under a high level of construal. This research proposes to adopt a 2 (Advance Selling vs. Spot Selling) x 2 (Short Psychological Distance vs. Far Psychological Distance) x 2 (AI Agents vs. Human Agents) between groups experimental study to test the main effects and mechanism (H1). Furthermore, this study would identify the key moderating effects to discuss the boundary effects of the mechanism for establishing marketing strategies with AI services for managers.

The mechanical properties of ferrous powder metallurgy (P/M) materials are directly related to their microstructure. Ferrous P/M materials with sufficient hardenability will develop microstructures containing significant percentages of martensite in the as-sintered condition. Recently, sinter-hardening has developed into a highly cost effective production method through hardened P/M parts without the need for additional heat-treatments. This paper reviews the advances of sinter-hardening as well as some key processing parameters such as sintering temperature, cooling rate, tempering required to produce high quality sinter-hardened components. Specific topics including effect of alloying elements, alloying methods, and the Characterization and observation of microstructure are discussed.