Rate My Professor Martina Čaić

Martina Čaić is an Assistant Professor in Strategic Service Design at Aalto University’s Department of Design, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, where she leads the ENCORE (Engaging Co-Design) research group since 2022. She earned her PhD from Maastricht University as a Marie Curie Fellow in the Service Design for Innovation Network (SDIN) project, funded by Horizon 2020 from 2015 to 2018; her dissertation is entitled "Designed to Serve: Social Robots in Value Networks." Prior to her current role, Čaić served as a postdoctoral researcher at CTF Service Research Center at Karlstad University and as an associate researcher at Hanken School of Economics. At Aalto University, she is the responsible teacher for the Designing for Services and Design Research courses, supervises and advises doctoral researchers, and manages research projects. These include the HiFive project, titled "Meaningful industrial work in hybrid human-technology-AI teams" (2024–2026), for which she is the principal investigator, and the EDUFI Fellowship for Jeong (2023–2024). Her work aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals 3 (Good Health and Well-being), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).

Čaić’s research interests lie at the intersection of service design, service management, and emerging technologies such as AI, social robots, and chatbots. She investigates interactions between AI-powered agents and humans in public and private service settings, including healthcare, education, financial services, and industrial contexts, with a focus on value co-creation, well-being, ethical implications, organizational transformation, meaningful work in Industry 5.0, and institutional arrangements shaping blue-collar work. Key publications include "Making work meaningful in Industry 5.0: institutional arrangements shaping blue-collar work" (2026, Interacting with Computers, with A. Viljakainen and J. Silmukari), "AI and the future of industrial work: a framework for enhancing employee experience from satisfaction to flourishing" (2025, Behaviour & Information Technology, with A. Viljakainen et al.), "Viewpoint: advancing service design with practitioners’ insights" (2025, Journal of Services Marketing, with N. Solsona Caba and T. Mattelmäki), "Robotic Versus Human Coaches for Active Aging" (2020), and "Robotic role theory: an integrative review of human–robot service interaction to advance role theory in the age of social robots" (2022). She has received the 2018 Robert Johnston Outstanding Paper of the Year Award at the Journal of Service Management (presented 2019), the 2019 Outstanding Paper of the Year Award at the Journal of Services Marketing (presented 2020), the 2021 Outstanding Reviewer award, and the 2022 Aalto ARTS Teaching Award (presented 2023).