Customer acceptance of frontline social robots—Human-robot interaction as boundary condition

From an interactionist perspective, we argue that what happens and how service is delivered during the human-robot interaction may alter the extent to which customers accept service robots. Extending previous research on customer acceptance of service robots and human-robot interaction, we treat the elements during the human-robot interaction process as boundary conditions for the link between service robots' functional and social-emotional capabilities. Specifically, we examine (1) contact frequency between customers and service robots, (2) interdependence among service robots and human service employees, and (3) service complexity, moderate the relationship between service robots' capabilities and customer acceptance. With data collected from 997 customers who have past experience with service robots, we found that the effect of functional and social-emotional capabilities of service robots on customer acceptance are more salient when contact frequency is low rather than high, interdependence among service robots and service employees is high rather than low, and service complexity is low rather than high. Our findings provide new insights into customer acceptance of social robots in the service settings. © 2023 Elsevier Inc.