Purpose

Service robots have increasingly been utilized in retail settings, yet empirical research on how frontline employees (FLEs) might deal with this new reality remains scarce. This mixed-methods study aims to examine how FLEs expect physical service robots to impact job characteristics and affect their job engagement and well-being.

Design/methodology/approach

First, explorative interviews (Study 1; N = 32) were conducted to investigate how FLEs currently experience job characteristics and how they believe robots might impact these job characteristics and job outcomes. Next, a survey (Study 2; N = 165) examined the relationship between job characteristics that retail FLEs expect to be impacted by robots and their own well-being and job engagement.

Findings

While the overall expectations for working with robots are mixed, retail FLEs expect that working with robots can alleviate certain job demands, but robots cannot help to replenish their job resources. On the contrary, most retail FLEs expect the pains and gains associated with robots in the workspace to cancel each other out, leaving their job engagement and well-being unaffected. However, of the FLEs that do anticipate that robots might have some impact on their well-being and job engagement, the majority expect negative effects.

Originality/value

This study is unique in addressing the trade-off between expected benefits and costs inherent to job demands-resources (JD-R) theory while incorporating a transformative service research (TSR) lens. By integrating different streams of research to study retail FLEs' expectations about working with robots and focusing on robots' impact on job engagement and well-being, this study offers new insights for theory and practice.

中文翻译：

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一线员工对在零售业使用实体机器人的期望

目的

服务机器人越来越多地用于零售环境，但关于一线员工 (FLE) 如何应对这一新现实的实证研究仍然很少。这项混合方法研究旨在研究 FLE 期望物理服务机器人如何影响工作特征并影响他们的工作投入和幸福感。

设计/方法/方法

首先，进行了探索性访谈（研究 1；N  = 32）以调查 FLE 目前如何体验工作特征以及他们认为机器人如何影响这些工作特征和工作成果。接下来，一项调查（研究 2；N  = 165）检查了零售 FLE 预计会受到机器人影响的工作特征与他们自己的幸福感和工作投入之间的关系。

发现

虽然对使用机器人的总体期望参差不齐，但零售 FLE 期望使用机器人可以缓解某些工作需求，但机器人无法帮助补充他们的工作资源。相反，大多数零售 FLE 预计与工作空间中的机器人相关的痛苦和收获会相互抵消，而不会影响他们的工作投入和幸福感。然而，在确实预计机器人可能会对他们的幸福感和工作投入产生一些影响的 FLE 中，大多数人预计会有负面影响。

原创性/价值

这项研究在解决工作需求-资源 (JD-R) 理论固有的预期收益和成本之间的权衡方面是独一无二的，同时结合了变革性服务研究 (TSR) 的视角。通过整合不同的研究流来研究零售 FLE 对使用机器人的期望，并关注机器人对工作投入和幸福感的影响，本研究为理论和实践提供了新的见解。