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Here, Radboud University presents publications written by its students, including theses from its bachelor’s and master’s programmes, papers by students of the Radboud Honours Academy, and contributions to various Radboud journals.
Recent Submissions
Item De ecologische spiritualiteit van Thomas Merton(2025-05-05)Deze masterscriptie onderzoekt de spirituele ontwikkeling van Thomas Merton in relatie tot de natuur. Deze komt tot uitdrukking in vijf sterke verlangens die gedurende zijn leven steeds nauwer met elkaar werden verweven. Duiding en interpretatie van deze verlangens en hun onderlinge samenhang werpen licht op de manier waarop ze zijn spiritualiteit voedden en vormden en daar ecologische dimensies aan toekenden. In dit onderzoek wordt een kwalitatieve inhoudsanalyse uitgevoerd van zijn dagboekaantekeningen tussen 1939 en 1963. De resultaten worden vervolgens getoetst aan een typering van een christelijke ecologische spiritualiteit met vijf kernthema’s; de typering is op basis van literatuur vastgesteld. Hieruit blijkt dat Merton bij de ecologische dimensies van elk thema vooral eigen accenten legde.Item Navigating the Privacy–Personalization Paradox: Understanding User Adoption of AI-Powered Fitness Apps(2025-07-03)This study explores how AI-driven service personalization and privacy concerns influence the adoption of AI-powered fitness applications. While users appreciate the benefits of tailored fitness recommendations, they simultaneously express concerns about the privacy of their personal data. This creates a privacy-personalization paradox, which is an important issue in the context of AI-powered fitness apps, since they use sensitive data to create personalized content. The hypothesized model is tested through a hierarchical regression analysis, using research data from 103 valid survey responses. The findings reveal that personalization positively affects the intention to adopt AI-powered fitness apps, while privacy concerns have a negative effect, both in line with previous research. Surprisingly, privacy concerns did not moderate the relationship between personalization and adoption, which suggests that privacy concerns and personalization do not interact, but operate as independent forces on adoption intention. The study contributes to AI adoption literature by highlighting the nuanced and independent roles of personalization and privacy concerns in shaping user behavior regarding AI-powered fitness apps. The study also provides directions for future research, and practical insights for app developers and fitness tech companies, and personal trainers.Item Consumer Purchase Intentions After Seeing Ads Generated by AI: The Role of Trust and the Theory of Planned Behavior(2025-07-02)This study investigates how consumer trust in generative artificial intelligence advertisements (GenAI ads) shapes purchase intention via the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Despite the growing use of GenAI ads, prior research has focused on consumer acceptance and attitude, overlooking purchase intention. This study extended the TPB by treating trust in the GenAI ad as an antecedent to address this gap. Data were gathered via a questionnaire in which 147 participants viewed a GenAI ad and then reported their trust, TPB beliefs, and purchase intention. Partial least squares structural equation modeling revealed that higher trust in the GenAI ad led to more favorable attitudes, stronger perceived social norms, and greater perceived behavioral control. Trust also exerted a significant indirect influence on intention. In turn, both attitude and, most strongly, subjective norms predicted purchase intention, while perceived control had no significant effect. These findings show that building trust is the first step in GenAI ad campaigns, after which TPB drivers, particularly social proof, translate that trust into purchase intention. The results indicate that marketers should foreground trust-building and social proof in their GenAI ads, while future research using experimental and longitudinal designs should confirm causality and explore dynamics across product categories.Item Perceived Control as a Mediator in AI Adoption: The Influence of Complexity on Intention to Use(2025-07-02)This study explores how perceived control mediates the relationship between complexity and adoption intention within the context of AI-driven financial technology. As the diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) into consumer markets accelerates, traditional models, such as the Diffusion of Innovations, fall short of explaining user resistance linked to psychological barriers. Drawing on Sensemaking, Cognitive Load, and Control Theory, we develop and test a model in which complexity reduces perceived control, which subsequently lowers adoption intention. Using a cross-sectional survey design (N = 101) and a fictional yet realistic scenario involving an AI financial tool, we find no significant direct effect of complexity on adoption intention once perceived control is accounted for, indicating a full mediation effect. Our results reveal that users are not directly deterred by complexity itself but by the loss of perceived control that it generates. This contribution to the literature introduces perceived control as a key psychological construct in the adoption process of AI services. The findings have managerial implications for AI design, suggesting that systems should emphasise user agency to alleviate the adverse effects of complexity on adoption behaviour.Item Navigating uncertainty: The impact of external tensions on strategic flexibility and the role of institutional environments(2025-07-08)This study examines how external geopolitical tensions influence strategic flexibility in defense firms and whether institutional environments moderate this relationship. Drawing on Real Option Theory (ROT), we analyze how firms in the defense industry respond to uncertainty by adjusting their investment flexibility. Using panel data from publicly listed defense firms across 28 countries from 2000-2022, we measure strategic flexibility though Real Options Intensity (ROI) and external tensions via the Geopolitical Risk Index (Caldara et al, 2022). Our findings reveal that external tensions significantly increase strategic flexibility in defense firms, supporting the theoretical prediction that uncertainty creates valuable strategic options. However, institutional differences between EU and non-EU countries do not significantly moderate this relationship, suggesting that defense firms’ responses to external tensions are relatively consistent across institutional context. These results contribute to ROT by demonstrating how macro level geopolitical events influence firm level strategic behavior and highlight the unique characteristics of the defense industry in responding to external tensions.
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