Effects of the spatial environment on tourists’ willingness to adopt robot services

ABSTRACT

Much of the literature on individuals’ low adoption of robots revolves around service quality or consumer psychology; physical environmental factors are scarcely addressed. This paper investigates consumers’ willingness to adopt robot services based on the spatial environment. A pair of experimental studies revealed that people are more willing to use robot services when the setting is spacious, whereas the opposite is true when the setting is compact. We also examined illusion of control as a mediator of the above impact. Furthermore, we identified consumers’ knowledge of robots as a boundary condition.

KEYWORDS:

• Robot services
• spatial environment
• illusion of control
• knowledge of robots

Acknowledgments

This research would not have been possible without the support of the panelists who provided thoughtful responses at each step of the project. We also thank the professors, students, and participants who supported our research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [71962007, 71832015, 72362008], and the Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation High-level Talents Project [722RC627].