Factors affecting customer acceptance of frontline service robot in a retail context

Abstract

This dissertation comprises of two empirical studies, a qualitative and a quantitative study. The completed study introduces a comprehensive psychological pathway model on customer acceptance of frontline service robot (FSR) drawn from role theory and the theory of consumption value and incorporates three main dimensions of FSR acceptance (functional, social-emotional, and relational dimensions). Moreover, the studies examined three mediators (utilitarian value, hedonic value, and psychological comfort) and the boundary effects of two moderators (self-efficacy and technology anxiety) on the FSR acceptance model. A mixed method research design was used for this thesis. The study was conducted in two phases. Phase 1, the qualitative study (in-depth interview) confirmed the variables delineated from the literature as well as explored any additional insights on customer acceptance of frontline service robots by collecting data from 32 participants who interacted with frontline service robot in a real-world business setting (retail customers of a telecommunications company). The qualitative results unveiled psychological comfort and individual characteristics (self-efficacy and technology anxiety) associated with the FSR acceptance. Phase 2 was a quantitative study (cross-sectional survey) with a sample of 388 customers immediately following their instore interaction with an FSR. The main objective of the second phase was to quantitatively investigate the factors impacting customer acceptance and examine the moderating role of heterogeneity factors on customer acceptance in a retail customer service context. The quantitative results showed that the most important mediating factor associated with FSR acceptance is utilitarian value, followed by psychological comfort and hedonic value, respectively. Furthermore, the functional dimension of perceived usefulness plays a vital role in predicting utilitarian value. Besides, the social presence has the highest positive significant impact on hedonic value followed by perceived humanness. The functional dimension, which is perceived autonomy, plays a vital role in predicting psychological comfort in the current study, followed by the social and emotional dimension, perceived humanness, and perceived usefulness, respectively. The moderating effect results of self-efficacy indicated that under the condition of higher self-efficacy, the functional factor (i.e., perceived usefulness) has a stronger association with utilitarian value. Moreover, the moderating effect results of technology anxiety indicated that under the condition of higher technology anxiety, the functional factor (i.e., perceive usefulness) has a weaker association with utilitarian value. The findings suggest that under the condition of higher technology anxiety, social-emotional factors (i.e., social presence) has a weaker association with hedonic value.