Examining the Impact of Frontline Service Robots Service Competence on Hotel Frontline Employees from a Collaboration Perspective

Abstract

With the increasing adoption of frontline service robots (FLSRs) in hospitality workplaces, collaboration between frontline employees (FLEs) and FLSRs has become a necessity. The existing literature focuses on the customer perspective of FLSRs; however, this study explains the mechanisms through which employees’ willingness to collaborate with FLSRs are built. By incorporating robot service capability and perceived risk as external variables into a technology acceptance model, this study investigated the mechanisms of FLEs’ willingness to collaborate with FLSRs. The results showed that the service capability of FLSRs plays a significant role in increasing FLEs’ willingness to collaborate, whereas perceived risk decreases their willingness to collaborate. These results indicate that the level of service capability of FLSRs and the management of perceived risk are important in shaping FLEs’ positive attitudes toward collaborating with FLSRs. Therefore, this study extends the literature by investigating how FLEs and FLSRs relate to each other from a collaboration perspective.