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Humanoid service robots versus human employee: how consumers react to functionally and culturally mixed products

Hongyan Jiang (School of Economics and Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China)
Mengmeng Xu (School of Economics and Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China)
Peizhen Sun (Department of Psychology, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, China)
Jing Zhang (China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China)

International Journal of Emerging Markets

ISSN: 1746-8809

Article publication date: 29 October 2021

Issue publication date: 16 May 2022

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Abstract

Purpose

Mixed products, while presenting new business opportunities, raise considerable concerns among managers and researchers. However, whether mixed products (functionally vs culturally) trigger positive or negative consumer reactions is controversial. Hereby, the present research seeks to resolve the conflicting effects by examining the moderating role of service provider type (humanoid service robot vs human employee) in the impact of mixed products on consumer reactions.

Design/methodology/approach

Two studies were conducted to explore the effect of mixed products on consumer reactions. Specifically, study 1 was developed to examine the interplay of mixed products and service provider type in shaping consumers' product attitudes and purchase intentions under an offline shopping scenario; study 2 further provided evidence for the mediating roles of perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment in the above processes under an online-shopping context.

Findings

The convergent findings of two studies conclude that, when served by a humanoid service robot (vs human employee), consumers exhibit more positive attitudes and higher purchase intentions toward functionally (vs culturally) mixed products. Furthermore, such effect is driven by the perceived usefulness (vs perceived enjoyment) when served by humanoid robot (vs human employee).

Originality/value

First, this is one of the first studies to conceptualize mixed products as the two-dimensional construct (i.e. functionally mixed and culturally mixed), and the findings sheds light on the mixed products literature. Second, this paper introduces service provider type as the boundary condition for the impact of mixed products on consumers' product attitudes and purchase intentions, which expands the match-up hypothesis and schema theory in service marketing. Third, the current research explores the mediating roles of perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment in the above effects, which could make significant contribution to the motivation theory.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 72072172, 71672187, 71832015), Social Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. 20GLB005), the Key Projects of the 13th Five-Year Plan for Education Science of Jiangsu Province (Grant Number B-a/2020/01/11), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2021ZDPYYQ006).

Conflict of Interest: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Citation

Jiang, H., Xu, M., Sun, P. and Zhang, J. (2022), "Humanoid service robots versus human employee: how consumers react to functionally and culturally mixed products", International Journal of Emerging Markets, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 987-1007. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOEM-04-2021-0643

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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