Use of service robots in an event setting: Understanding the role of social presence, eeriness, and identity threat

With the increased use of robots in the event industry, most of the literature centers on factors that influence robot adoption, with less attention being paid to the understanding of how customers interact and connect with anthropomorphic robots. With the growing research in this field, questions remain about the event attendees' perceptions and evaluations of humanoid service robots (HSRs) and the interactive effects that shape customers' thinking and behavior towards the use of this technology. This study proposes a conceptual model to examine the role of social presence, while explaining the moderating roles of eeriness and identity threat through two experimental studies, using photo scenarios as stimuli in an online survey, with closed-ended questions. Study 1 was a single-factor between-subject experiment that manipulated a conference registration task in an event setting. Results revealed that event attendees were more satisfied with service employees (SE) than with HSR; and social presence mediated the relationship between type of service provider (HSR vs. SE) and satisfaction. Study 2 examined eeriness and identity threat as moderators and results indicated that eeriness and identity threat significantly moderate the indirect effect of the type of service provider (HSR vs. SE) on satisfaction through social presence. The study provides valuable insight about the evaluation of humanoid service robots by event attendees by deepening our understanding of how event attendees engage with service robots to form stronger connections with such a technology. Taken together, the findings of this study offer managerial implications by balancing event industry employees’ affinity for and the acceptance of the service robots.