Can Humanoid Service Robots Perform Better Than Service Employees? A Comparison of Innovative Behavior Cues

Stock, Ruth; Merkle, Moritz

doi:10.24251/hicss.2018.133

Cited by 56 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Therefore, it is important that service robots deliver on those elements according to customer needs and wants, and it is this needs congruency (c.f., Wirtz and Mattila, 2001) and role congruency (c.f., Soloman et al, 1985) that drive acceptance rather than a high or low level on those elements. The service process tends to break down when there is a service failure; recovery is unlikely within the technology Can recover the service by offering alternative solutions very much like a service employee could Social-emotional dimensions Stock and Merkle (2018) argue that customers' acceptance of robots will not only depend on their perceived functionality but also on social-emotional elements (see also Heerink et al, 2008;van Doorn et al, 2017) such as perceived humanness (Tinwell et al, 2011), perceived social interactivity and perceived social presence (van Doorn et al, 2017). Each of the three sub-dimensions will be discussed below.…”

Section: Functional Dimensions and Self-service Technology (Sst)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Brave new world: service robots in the frontline

Wirtz

Patterson

Kunz

et al. 2018

JOSM

1,382

1,384

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Purpose-The service sector is at an inflection point with regard to productivity gains and service industrialization similar to the industrial revolution in manufacturing that started in the eighteenth century. Robotics in combination with rapidly improving technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), mobile, cloud, big data and biometrics will bring opportunities for a wide range of innovations that have the potential to dramatically change service industries. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential role service robots will play in the future and to advance a research agenda for service researchers. Design/methodology/approach-This paper uses a conceptual approach that is rooted in the service, robotics and AI literature. Findings-The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, it provides a definition of service robots, describes their key attributes, contrasts their features and capabilities with those of frontline employees, and provides an understanding for which types of service tasks robots will dominate and where humans will dominate. Second, this paper examines consumer perceptions, beliefs and behaviors as related to service robots, and advances the service robot acceptance model. Third, it provides an overview of the ethical questions surrounding robot-delivered services at the individual, market and societal level. Practical implications-This paper helps service organizations and their management, service robot innovators, programmers and developers, and policymakers better understand the implications of a ubiquitous deployment of service robots. Originality/value-This is the first conceptual paper that systematically examines key dimensions of robot-delivered frontline service and explores how these will differ in the future.

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Section: Functional Dimensions and Self-service Technology (Sst)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Brave new world: service robots in the frontline

Wirtz

Patterson

Kunz

et al. 2018

JOSM

1,382

1,384

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Accomplishing such objectives forces organizations to focus on service innovation, which appears when a service provider develops, promotes, and puts new ideas into practice as key ingredients of innovative services or work behaviors [2]. A service representative providing new solutions and creating novel ideas for customers is known as "service innovative behavior" (SIB) [3], which has emerged as an essential target in a range of organizations [4,5]. It is especially true for the hotel industry, in which managers have started examining creative ways to attract and keep their customers through supporting the novel ideas of their employees regarding hospitality processes and services [6][7][8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructive Leadership and Employee Innovative Behaviors: A Serial Mediation Model

2020

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This study aims to examine the influence of constructive leadership practices on the service innovative behaviors of hotel employees by a serial mediation system that treats employee psychological safety and employee creativity as mediators. Empirical data were collected from full-time frontline hotel employees in Antalya, Turkey. By using both convenience and judgmental sampling methods, this study included 357 hotel employees. The results provide empirical evidence for all suggested hypothesized associations. In particular, the findings display that psychological safety and engagement in creative work tasks play intervening roles (in the form of a chain) in the indirect influence of constructive leadership on employee perceptions regarding their service innovative culture. The current work provides practical contributions for hotel industry professionals who are in the treatment of implementing psychological safety and employee creativity, in order to establish innovative service culture in the hotel setting. The paper is among the first studies to investigate a serial mediation model to analyze which constructive leadership practices influence their innovative service culture.

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“…To run the experiments in a setting as realistic as possible, the setting of a hotel reception was built up that resembles a realistic hotel situation, which was guided by the design of established experimental studies [31] [32].…”

Section: Experimental Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Customer Responses to Service Robots – Comparing Human-Robot Interaction with Human-Human Interaction

Merkle

2019

Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

Self Cite

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This paper investigates how service failures affect customers by comparing human-robot interactions with human-human interactions. More specifically, it compares customers' satisfaction in a service robot interaction depending on a service failure with the customers' satisfaction in a frontline service employee interaction. On a theoretical basis, extant literature on the uncanny valley paradigm proposed that service robots would create lower satisfaction than human frontline employees would. However, I find that service robots could keep up with human frontline employees. Based on an extensive literature research on service failures, I propose that customer satisfaction after a service failure declines far less for a human frontline employee compared with a service robot. Nevertheless, I find evidence that service robots create even higher customer satisfaction than human frontline employees after the exactly similar service failure. I base my findings on an experimental laboratory study with 120 student participants and the service robot "Pepper" from Softbank Corp.

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Can Humanoid Service Robots Perform Better Than Service Employees? A Comparison of Innovative Behavior Cues

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 56 publications

References 44 publications

Brave new world: service robots in the frontline

Brave new world: service robots in the frontline

Constructive Leadership and Employee Innovative Behaviors: A Serial Mediation Model

Customer Responses to Service Robots – Comparing Human-Robot Interaction with Human-Human Interaction

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