This study will examine whether individuals perceive human-designed office workspace environments more positively than AI-designed office workspace environments. As organizations increasingly use artificial intelligence into workplace planning and design, understanding how AI-generated environments influence organizational perceptions has become extremely important. Despite growing discussions regarding Artificial Intelligence in organizational settings, limited research has examined whether the source of workplace design affects perceptions of trust, productivity, and organizational attractiveness. It is hypothesized that participants exposed to human-designed office workspaces will report higher levels of organizational trust, perceived workplace productivity, and organizational attractiveness than participants exposed to Artificial intelligence-designed office workspaces. Participants will be randomly assigned to view images of either a human-designed or an AI-designed office workspace and will complete a questionnaire measuring organizational trust, perceived workplace productivity, and organizational attractiveness. The data will be analyzed using independent-samples t tests to compare participants’ responses across the two experimental conditions. It is expected that participants who view the human-designed office workspace will report significantly more positive perceptions across all three dependent variables. The findings of this study will contribute to the growing literature on artificial intelligence in organizations and provide insight into how Artificial intelligence-generated workplace environments influence organizational perceptions and workplace decision-making.

Goods have become more and more easy to make over the last one-hundred and fifty years. With the ease of creating items, purchasing has become a daily task. However, many consumers are unaware of how much they are being deceived. They are often told white lies by companies weekly through marketing phrases and images such as “green" and "eco-friendly.” When consumers become aware of companies' deception around the environment they tend to lose trust. This deception is called greenwashing, also described as a company claiming to be environmentally conscious when they are in fact not. If companies are called out but then make efforts towards becoming truly environmentally friendly, does it impact the consumers’ purchasing behavior and trust? Do changes in purchasing behavior and trust coincide with one another? Two hundred participants were asked to fill out a survey to see if there is an impact. Participants read an initial article about a fake athletic company greenwashing. One group was exposed to an article on the same company releasing an upcoming clothing line. The second group was exposed to an article about the athletic company apologizing and making efforts towards sustainability via third party certifications. This research investigates the connection between greenwashing, trust, and purchasing behavior, if one exists, and to what extent they impact one another. I argue that greenwashing does impact purchasing behavior and simultaneously impacts trust. This research aims for consumers to gain knowledge of greenwashing and recognize the importance of companies building trust amongst its consumers.

Summer heatwaves have contributed to the failure of important crops in different world regions, with climate change expected to increase both the severity and frequency of these extreme events. One potential mechanism that could contribute to crop failure during extreme heat is the disruption of pollination. Heatwaves could negatively impact pollination by reducing the amount and viability of pollen, lowering the effectiveness of the pollinators, or a combination of the two. To quantify the impact of heatwaves on the pollination of sunflowers and their associated pollinators, we will measure seed set at commercial sunflower fields before, during, and after heatwaves. Comparisons of seed set between flowers left open to insect pollination and hand-pollinated to saturate pollination will reveal whether heatwave effects are due to decreased pollen quality, decreased pollinator effectiveness, or a combination of the two.

In many parts of the United States, Day Laborers, people who work for a daily wage, congregate in front of home improvement stores in the hopes that the customers buying materials are also in need of labor. While current literature highlights the plethora of adversities that many of these individuals, who are mostly men, face, (e.g., wage theft, discrimination based on status or race, on-site injuries, etc., it is also important to understand day laborers’ experiences within the current sociopolitical climate (Fernandez-Esquer et al., 2022; Ramirez, 2011; Ordoñez, 2015; Walter et al., 2004). At times the stories and humanity of these individuals outside of their labor is lost; for example, what other aspects of their self has been shaped by the ever-changing anti-immigration policies. For the current project, we partnered with a nonprofit organization that is centered around reducing the fatalities of migrants on both sides of the border. This study uses a Community-Based Participatory Research design (CBPR; Collins et al., 2018) to understand current needs and experiences of Day Laborers working in an urban Southern California border city. Both quantitative and qualitative data will be gathered via interviews/platicas and questionnaires. The overall goal of this study is to help expand the literature (e.g., how community and personal life is impacted by policy), advocate for necessary policy changes and forms of aid, and to highlight that these individuals are somebody and that their stories are not tales of fiction, but rather, of survival.