Papers
7
Total Citations
359
H-Index
7
About
Emily Ma is a leading hospitality and technology researcher whose work sits at the intersection of service robotics, customer experience, and human-robot interaction. Best known for her rigorous investigations into how robotic technologies reshape the hospitality industry, Ma has made foundational contributions to understanding both customer and employee perspectives on service automation. Her landmark systematic literature review on hospitality employees' experiences working alongside robots (2023, 111 citations) has become an essential reference in the field, while her comparative analysis of robotic restaurants in the United States and China (2021, 64 citations) demonstrated how cultural context shapes the adoption and perception of restaurant automation. Drawing on diverse theoretical frameworks — including product level theory, the experience economy model, person-environment fit theory, and similarity-attraction theory — Ma consistently bridges conceptual innovation with practical industry insight. Her research on perceived authenticity in robot-versus-human service encounters (2022, 52 citations) has been particularly influential in shaping how scholars think about consumer trust and brand credibility in automated environments. With over 350 cumulative citations across her most prominent works and a growing portfolio exploring job design and employee collaboration with robots, Ma's scholarship offers indispensable guidance for hospitality operators and researchers navigating an increasingly automated future.
Research Focus
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Top Papers
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