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Background

The adoption of service robots has become a trend in catering industry, so that scholars have conducted research to understand consumers’ preference on service robots, hoping to understand what kind of service robots facilitate consumers’ positive responses. In such research, scholars discover that service robots’ anthropomorphism brings positive effects on consumer behaviour. Given this, whether robots’ anthropomorphism could have a mitigating role on consumers’ negative reactions after robots’ service failure becomes an increasingly investigated question among scholars. This study is conducted in a service failure context, aiming to understand the effect of service robots’ anthropomorphism on consumers’ intention to share negative word of mouth after robots’ service failure in catering industry. It also aims to apply Inclusive Fitness theory to investigate whether the relationship between service robots’ anthropomorphism and consumers’ intention to share negative word of mouth (after robots’ service failure) is mediated by consumers’ commitment. Still, this study adopts Attribution theory, hoping to understand the moderating effect of consumers’ motive attribution on the mediating role of consumers’ commitment.

Method

This study adopts quantitative method in the form of experiment (online via Qualtrics), 200 respondents participated in the experiment. The experiment is a 2x2 between-subject experiment including four experimental scenarios. Besides, this study uses ANOVA test, Mediation analysis and Moderated Mediation analysis in Hayes’ PROCESS to test hypotheses.

Results

1. Service robots’ high perceived anthropomorphism leads to consumers’ lower intention to share negative word of mouth after robot’ service failure in catering industry;
2. There is a mediating role of consumers’ commitment in the relationship between service robots’ anthropomorphism and consumers’ intention to share negative word of mouth;
3. There is a moderating role of consumers’ motive attribution (i.e., benefit and cost attribution) on the mediating role of consumers’ commitment.

Keywords

• service robots
• anthropomorphism
• service failure
• negative word of mouth
• consumer behaviour
• consumer psychology
• Inclusive Fitness theory
• Attribution theory