Heyao Yu

Papers

Total Citations

135

H-Index

About

Heyao Yu is an emerging researcher whose work sits at the intersection of hospitality management, human-robot interaction, and organizational behavior. Specializing in the psychological and behavioral responses of hospitality employees to service robot adoption, Yu has made significant contributions to understanding how workers perceive and react to the growing automation of hotel services. Drawing on frameworks such as the Social Amplification of Risk Framework, Yu's research examines how employees — particularly Generation Z — develop awareness of service robots as threats to human labor, and how leadership dynamics shape those perceptions. Yu's most influential work, "Robots can't take my job" (2022), has garnered 118 citations and stands as a foundational study in employee-robot risk perception, highlighting the critical moderating role of transformational leadership in buffering negative outcomes. Building on this, Yu's 2024 study explores the darker side of human-robot interaction, investigating how fear and risk awareness can drive employees toward robot abuse — a novel and underexplored phenomenon in the field. Together, Yu's body of work offers hospitality scholars and practitioners valuable insights into workforce readiness for technological disruption, positioning Yu as a notable emerging voice in hospitality management research.