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As a new research interest, robots have surpassed human performance across several aspects. In this research, the authors wish to investigate whether robot adopters perform better than non-adopters in terms of export behavior, especially when distinguishing between different types of firms.

The authors try a new strategy to identify the extent of robot adoption by import data and compare the export trajectories of robot adopters and non-adopters by employing the propensity score matching-difference in difference (PSM-DID) method.

The authors find that robot adopters are more likely to enter export markets and improve subsequent export performance, as the gains from doing so can spread the reduction in variable production costs to a larger customer base abroad. But this rule does not always seem to work; for large-scale firms, robot adoption makes it easier to win export competition and increase market share, while small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) do not seem to enjoy any benefits from adoption. More importantly, robot adoption also leads to the fiercer market competition when improving the productivity of firms, which will threaten smaller non-adopters.

The findings provide new evidence for the scale bias of robotics and offer new insights into whether exporters or future exporters ought to adopt robots in production.

1. First, distinguishing from existing research, we explain the controversial results of previous work on robotics by providing evidence from export markets and using the concept of size bias, which helps to update the theoretical interpretation of robotics and provides new insights for current and future exporters to evaluate their robot adoption decisions.

2. Second, we extend previous research by further considering the potential robotics threats faced by non-adopters, especially we record that export gains of robot adopters are partially at the expense of smaller non-adopters, which provides new evidence for the rationale of SME protection policies and supplements robotics theory with new knowledge, such as the competitive game of firms related to robot adoption.

3. Third, to our knowledge, prior research tended to examine the economic effects of robotics through industry data provided by the IFR, this may lead to systematic bias due to the inability to distinguish the robot adoption intentions of different firms. In this respect, we try a new strategy through robot import data and further distinguish between robot adopters and non-adopters in the sample, which helps to mitigate the potential bias in the findings and provide a complement to the recently developed literature related to robotics.

4. Finally, as we pointed out earlier, robot adoption could be an interesting research work for the Chinese export market, which helps us to obtain some special findings, such as in assessing whether the benefits of robots are equally appropriate for economies that previously had an advantage in terms of labor.

First, distinguishing from existing research, we explain the controversial results of previous work on robotics by providing evidence from export markets and using the concept of size bias, which helps to update the theoretical interpretation of robotics and provides new insights for current and future exporters to evaluate their robot adoption decisions.

Second, we extend previous research by further considering the potential robotics threats faced by non-adopters, especially we record that export gains of robot adopters are partially at the expense of smaller non-adopters, which provides new evidence for the rationale of SME protection policies and supplements robotics theory with new knowledge, such as the competitive game of firms related to robot adoption.

Third, to our knowledge, prior research tended to examine the economic effects of robotics through industry data provided by the IFR, this may lead to systematic bias due to the inability to distinguish the robot adoption intentions of different firms. In this respect, we try a new strategy through robot import data and further distinguish between robot adopters and non-adopters in the sample, which helps to mitigate the potential bias in the findings and provide a complement to the recently developed literature related to robotics.

Finally, as we pointed out earlier, robot adoption could be an interesting research work for the Chinese export market, which helps us to obtain some special findings, such as in assessing whether the benefits of robots are equally appropriate for economies that previously had an advantage in terms of labor.

A new round of technological revolution is impacting various aspects of society. However, the importance of technology adoption in fostering firm innovation is underexplored. Therefore, this study aims to investigate whether robot adoption affects technological innovation and how human capital plays a role in this relationship in the era of circular economy.

Based on the robot adoption data from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) and panel data of China's listed manufacturing firms from 2011 to 2020, this study uses regression models to test the impact of industrial robots on firm innovation and the mediating role of human capital.

The results demonstrate that the adoption of industrial robots can significantly promote high-quality innovation. Specifically, a one-unit increase in the number of robots per 100 employees is associated with a 13.52% increase in the number of invention patent applications in the following year. The mechanism tests show that industrial robots drive firm innovation by accumulating more highly educated workers and allocating more workers to R&D jobs. The findings are more significant for firms in industries with low market concentration, in labor-intensive industries and in regions with a shortage of high-end talent.

Due to data limitations, the sample of this study is limited to listed manufacturing firms, so the impact of industrial robots on promoting innovation may be underestimated. In addition, this study cannot observe the dynamic process of human capital management by firms after adopting robots.

The Chinese government should continue to promote the intelligent upgrading of the manufacturing industry and facilitate the promotion of robots in innovation. This implication can also be applied to developing countries that hope to learn from China's experience. In addition, this study emphasizes the role of human capital in the innovation-promoting process of robots. This highlights the importance of firms to strengthen employee education and training.

The adoption of industrial robots has profoundly influenced the production and lifestyle of human society. This study finds that the adoption of robots contributes to firm innovation, which helps people gain a deeper understanding of the positive impacts brought about by industrial intelligence.

By exploring the impact of industrial robots on firm innovation, this study offers crucial evidence at the firm level to comprehend the economic implications of robot adoption based on circular economy and human perspectives. Moreover, this study reveals that human capital is an important factor in how industrial robots affect firm innovation, providing an important complement to previous studies.

This study aims to investigate whether the increasing robot adoption will affect employment rate and wages to contribute to the economic cycle and sustainable development in the world.

The authors introduce a two-way fixed effect model and ordinary least-squares (OLS) model to evaluate the influence based on relevant data of the eighteen countries with the largest robot stocks and robot densities in the world from 2006 to 2019 to test the influences and do the robustness test and endogeneity test by using empirical models.

The authors’ research findings suggest that increasing robot adoption can cause strong negative impacts on employment for both males and females in these economies. Second, the effect of robots on reducing job opportunities has penetrated different industries. It means that this negative impact of robots is comprehensive for the industry. Third, robot adoption can have a strong positive influence on wages and increase workers' incomes.

The limitations of the study are that the influence of industrial intelligence technologies on the circular economy is diversities in different countries. Thus, this study should consider the development levels of different economies to do additional confirmatory studies.

This study makes out the correlations between industrial robots and the employment market from the circular economy perspective. The result proves the existence of this influence relationship, and the authors propose some suggestions to promote sustainable economic development.

This paper addresses the activity of industrial intelligence technologies in the labor market. The employment market is an important part of the circular economy, and it will benefit social development if the government provides appropriate guidance for social investment and industrial layout.

This study is one of the few studies which considered the impact of industrial robots on employment and wages from the perspective of different industries, and this is very important for the circular economy in the world. The results of this paper provide an instructive reference for government policymakers and other countries to stabilize the labor market and optimize human resources for sustainable economic development.

This paper focuses on understanding firm-level determinants of industrial robots' adoption and how these determinants result in heterogenous processes of robotisation across firms within the same sector. The paper presents results from in-depth case studies of final assemblers in the South African automotive sector.

The research has been conducted through multiple case studies with a focus on final assemblers. During the case studies, as well as before and after it, data coming from in-depth semi-structured interviews were triangulated with secondary data available from the international database on industrial robots' adoption and documents provided by firms and institutions.

This paper identifies three firm-level determinants of robotisation – i.e. modularity of the production process, flexibility in the use of technology and stability in product design. The results also showed that firms' robotisation depend on each of these determinants as well as their interdependence. The authors introduce a framework to study interdependence between these technology–organisational choices, which reveals heterogenous patterns of technology deployment and related managerial implications.

This research introduces a new framework on factors driving industrial robotisation – a key digital production technology – and offers empirical evidence of the heterogenous deployment of this technology. The authors identify two main manufacturing approaches to robotisation in the automotive sector: one in which the firm designs a robotised process around a certain product design – i.e. the German/American way and one in which the firm designs its product based on certain robotised processes – i.e. the Japanese way. These findings are valuable for both industry, operational research and the scientific community as they reveal heterogeneity on the “how” of robotisation and implications for manufacturing technology management.

The connection between digital manufacturing technologies (Industry 4.0) and the environment has sparked discussions on firms' disclosure of negative information on pollutant emissions and the pursuit of positive environmental outcomes. However, very few studies explore how it relates to a firm's robot usage and its mechanism. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of robot penetration on firms' environmental governance in China.

The ordered probit model (and probit model) are employed and empirically tested with a sample of 1,579 Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2019.

The study reveals a negative relationship between robot usage and the disclosure of negative indicators and a U-shaped relationship between robot usage and positive environmental outcomes. Among the sample, nonstate-owned enterprises (SOEs) display unsatisfactory performance, while heavily polluting industries disclose more information on pollutant emissions. The robot–environmental governance nexus is conditional on firm size, capital intensity and local economic development.

The study proposes a fresh view of corporate environmental governance to assess the environmental implications of robot adoption. It also contributes to identifying the curvilinear, moderating and heterogenous effects in the robot–environment nexus. The results provide rich policy implications for the development of industrial intelligence and corporate environmental governance in the circular economy (CE) context.

This study aims to propose a research model integrating technology acceptance model 3 (TAM3) constructs and human aspects of humanoid service robots (HSRs), measured by the Godspeed questionnaire series and tested across two hotel properties in Japan and the USA.

Potential participants were approached randomly by email invitation. A final sample size of 395 across two hotels, one in Japan and the other in the USA, was obtained, and the data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results confirm that perceived usefulness, driven by subjective norms and output quality, and perceived ease of use, driven by perceived enjoyment and absence of anxiety, are the immediate direct determinants of users’ re-patronage intentions for HSRs. Results also showed that users prefer anthropomorphism, perceived intelligence and the safety of an HSR for reusing it.

The findings have practical implications for the hospitality industry, suggesting multiple attributes of an HSRs that managers need to consider before deploying them in their properties.

The current study proposes an integrated model determining factors that affect the re-patronage of HSRs in hotels.

Human–robot collaboration (HRC) is an emerging research field for the construction industry along with construction robot adoption, but its implementation remains limited in construction sites. This paper aims to identify critical risk factors and their interactions of HRC implementation during engineering project construction.

Literature research, expert interviews, a questionnaire survey and a social network analysis (SNA) method were used. First, literature research and expert interviews were employed to identify risk factors of HRC implementation and preliminarily understand factor interactions. Second, a questionnaire survey was conducted to determine the degree of interactions between risk factors. Third, based on the data collected from the questionnaire survey, SNA metrics were used to find critical risk factors and critical interactions.

The critical risk factors consist of robot technology reliability, robot-perceived level, conflict between designers and users of construction robots, organisational culture, organisational strength, project cost requirements, changeability of project construction, project quality requirements and project safety requirements. The interactions between risk factors are strong and complex. Robot technology risk factors were relatively fundamental risk factors, and project risk factors had a direct influence on the risk of HRC implementation. The implementation cost of HRC was not identified as a critical risk factor. Individual risk factors could be mitigated by improving technical and organisational factors.

This paper contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of both HRC behaviours and its risk management in construction project management. Identifying the critical risk factors and their interactions of HRC implementation in the construction industry and introducing social network theory to the research on critical risk factors are the innovations of this paper. The findings and proposed suggestions could help construction professionals to better understand the HRC risk factors and to manage the risk of HRC implementation more effectively.

Robots have been adopted in numerous tourism and hospitality sectors, including restaurants. This study aims to investigate fast-food employees' use of service robots (SRs) in Pakistan.

This study used a conceptual model based on innovation resistance theory (IRT). By employing structural equation modeling (SEM) in Smart-PLS 3.2.8, we evaluated data from 247 valid respondents.

The findings demonstrated that drivers of robot adaptation significantly influenced image barriers, risk barriers, traditional barriers, usage barriers and value barriers. The results also revealed that usage, image and traditional barriers significantly affect usage intention.

This study enhances the research on robotics acceptance in tourism and hospitality and subsequently aids in the planning for post-COVID-19 resumption. This study offers several practical and theoretical insights for further investigation.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate service robots as an alternative service provider that can reduce customers’ social discomfort in hospitality service encounters. Specifically, the authors discuss when and in what scenarios service robots can alleviate such social discomfort and explain this effect from the perspective of dehumanization.

Following a social constructivist paradigm, the authors adopt a qualitative research design, gathering data through 21 semistructured interviews to explore why the presence of service employees causes customers’ social discomfort in hospitality service encounters and how service robots alleviate such discomfort.

This study’s results suggest that both the active and passive engagement of service employees are sources of customers’ social discomfort in hospitality service encounters; thus, adopting service robots can help reduce such discomfort in some scenarios. Customers’ differentiating behaviors, a downstream effect of social discomfort, are also addressed.

Service robots can reduce customers’ social discomfort in certain scenarios and influence their consumption behaviors. This finding offers actionable insights regarding the adoption of service robots in hospitality service encounters.

This research enhances the understanding of social discomfort in hospitality service encounters and expands the research on service robots. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first attempt to reveal the bright side of robots in service encounters from a dehumanization perspective.