Robot relationships within communal/exchange service contexts: working paper

Emergent technologies are rapidly transforming the nature of services and service experiences. One particular area predicted to have a significant impact on these is the integration of robots into service systems. However, extant literature on service provider-user encounters and their consequential relationships implicitly assumes that the key social agents involved are primarily human. This proposed research will address this gap by investigating the extent to which robot anthropomorphization/animacy influences user perceptions of competence/professionalism and/or social cognition. It considers the impact of these on provider-user relational trust within contrasting service contexts. Specifically, using an innovative methodological approach, it will examine the extent to which ‘communal’ and ‘exchange’ contexts are influential on relational development intention and the type of relationship sought by service users

Cyborgian encounters in relationship marketing contexts

The paper discusses the theoretical development and concepts that may apply to a new class of human-robot relationship for marketing contexts. The presentation will discuss the preliminary findings into how firms/brands may integrate cyborgian service actors into their propositions

Report on the Third Working Group Meeting of the AG Marketing

This article reports on the third working group meeting of the AG Marketing within the GfKl Data Science Society. The meeting was held online as part of the DSSV-ECDA 2021 conference from July 7 to 9, 2021, hosted by the Erasmus University Rotterdam. The presented talks included topics from a great variety of fields from quantitative marketing, such as marketing modeling as well as retailing and digital marketing

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto:Emergence of Automated Social Presence in Organizational Frontlines and Customers’ Service Experiences

Technology is rapidly changing the nature of service, customers’ service frontline experiences, and customers’ relationships with service providers. Based on the prediction that in the marketplace of 2025, technology (e.g., service-providing humanoid robots) will be melded into numerous service experiences, this article spotlights technology’s ability to engage customers on a social level as a critical advancement of technology infusions. Specifically, it introduces the novel concept of automated social presence (ASP; i.e., the extent to which technology makes customers feel the presence of another social entity) to the services literature. The authors develop a typology that highlights different combinations of automated and human social presence in organizational frontlines and indicates literature gaps, thereby emphasizing avenues for future research. Moreover, the article presents a conceptual framework that focuses on (a) how the relationship between ASP and several key service and customer outcomes is mediated by social cognition and perceptions of psychological ownership as well as (b) three customer-related factors that moderate the relationship between ASP and social cognition and psychological ownership (i.e., a customer’s relationship orientation, tendency to anthropomorphize, and technology readiness). Finally, propositions are presented that can be a catalyst for future work to enhance the understanding of how technology infusion, particularly service robots, influences customers’ frontline experiences in the future

Customer’s Acceptance of Humanoid Robots in Services: The Moderating Role of Risk Aversion

The emerging introduction of humanoid robots in service encounters is becoming a reality in the present and the short-term. Owing to this unstoppable advance, there is a need to better understand customers’ perceptions and reactions toward humanoid agents in service encounters. To shed some light on this underexplored phenomenon, this research investigates how the interaction between robot and customer’s features may contribute to a successful introduction of this disruptive innovation. Results of an empirical study with a sample of 168 US customers reveal that customer’s perceptions of robot’s human-likeness increase the intentions to use humanoid service robots. Interestingly, customers’ risk aversion moderates this relationship. Specifically, the study found that highly risk-averse customers tend to avoid using humanoids when they are perceived as highly mechanical-like. The discussion highlights the main contributions of the research, which combine previous knowledge on human–robot interaction and risk aversion from a marketing approach. Managerial implications derived from the research findings and the avenues opened for further research are described at the end

Review of Artificial Intelligence with Retailing Sector

This research service provides an original perspective on how artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into the retail sector. Retail has entered a new era where ECommerce and technology bellwethers like Alibaba, Amazon, Apple, Baidu, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Tencent have raised consumers’ expectations. AI is enabling automated decision-making with accuracy and speed, based on data analytics, coupled with self- learning abilities. The retail sector has witnessed the dramatic evolution with the rapid digitalization of communication (i.e. Internet) and; smart phones and devices. Customer is no longer the same as they became more empowered by smart devices which has entirely prevailed their expectation, habits, style of shopping and investigating the shops. This article outlines the Significant innovation done in retails which helped them to evolve such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big data and Internet of Things (IoT), Chatbots, Robots. This article further also discusses the ideology of various author on how AI become more profitable and a close asset to customers and retailers

Service Robots in the Hospitality Industry: An Exploratory Literature Review

The service sector is changing drastically due the use of robotics and other technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of things (IoT), Big Data and Biometrics. Consequently, further research opportunities in the service industry domain are also expected. In light of the above, the purpose of this paper is to explore the potentialities and limitations of service robots in the hospitality industry. To this end, this paper uses a conceptual approach based on a literature review. As a result, we found that in contexts of high customer contact, service robots should be considered to perform standardized tasks due to social/emotional and cognitive/analytical complexity. The hospitality industry is therefore considered closely related to empathic intelligence, as the integration of service robots has not yet reached the desired stage of service delivery. In a seemingly far-fetched context of our reality, organizations will have to decide whether the AI will allow the complete replacement of humans with robots capable of performing the necessary cognitive and emotional tasks. Or investing in balanced capacities by integrating robot-human systems that seems a reasonable option these days.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Social presence and dishonesty in retail

Self-service checkouts (SCOs) in retail can benefit consumers and retailers, providing control and autonomy to shoppers independent from staff, together with reduced queuing times. Recent research indicates that the absence of staff may provide the opportunity for consumers to behave dishonestly, consistent with a perceived lack of social presence. This study examined whether a social presence in the form of various instantiations of embodied, visual, humanlike SCO interface agents had an effect on opportunistic behaviour. Using a simulated SCO scenario, participants experienced various dilemmas in which they could financially benefit themselves undeservedly. We hypothesised that a humanlike social presence integrated within the checkout screen would receive more attention and result in fewer instances of dishonesty compared to a less humanlike agent. This was partially supported by the results. The findings contribute to the theoretical framework in social presence research. We concluded that companies adopting self-service technology may consider the implementation of social presence in technology applications to support ethical consumer behaviour, but that more research is required to explore the mixed findings in the current study.<br/