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Robot research
A critical review of robot research and future
and future research opportunities: research

adopting a service
ecosystem perspective 2337
Hakseung Shin Received 22 September 2021
Revised 7 January 2022
Department of Tourism, College of Social Science, Hanyang University, 12 March 2022
Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea Accepted 14 March 2022

Abstract
Purpose – Given the recent growth of service robot research in hospitality and tourism management
(HTM), the purpose of this study is to identify a research agenda by conducting a systematic and holistic
review of service robot research published in both HTM and broader business management (BM) journals.
Design/methodology/approach – Adopting a service ecosystem perspective, 38 HTM articles and 13
highly cocited BM articles out of 126 BM articles were qualitatively reviewed to analyze the intellectual
structures and foundations of robotics research.
Findings – The relationships between service robots and the four multilevel actors of the service ecosystem
were analyzed: the consumer, employee, management and society. Twenty-eight specific research questions
were proposed for the robotics-customer relationship, robotics-employee relationship, robotics-management
relationship and robotics-society relationship.
Research limitations/implications – This study contributes to understanding the intellectual
structures and evolution of rapidly growing HTM robotics research in terms of the holistic relationships
among the four service ecosystem actors of robotics. Future research needs to identify other actors and their
activities to examine the service ecosystem of robotics.
Originality/value – This study provides a pathway for future hospitality and tourism research by helping
to focus on important robotics issues and further develop the theoretical and empirical knowledge of robotics.
This work informs practitioners of key issues associated with the industrial adoption of robots.
Keywords Cocitation analysis, Robotics, Service robots, Service ecosystem,
Critical literature review, Future research opportunities, Service robots
Paper type Literature review

1. Introduction
Robotics is transforming the landscape of hospitality and tourism management (HTM). In
particular, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the applications of robotics as a means
of maintaining social distancing and improving health safety in hospitality and tourism
industries (Romero and Lado, 2021; Sam et al., 2021). However, the labor-intensive and
hedonic nature of hospitality and tourism services has created a wide debate on service
robots (Noone and Coulter, 2012). While service robots can enable hospitality and tourism
organizations to achieve cost-effective management, enhanced service quality, optimal
allocation of resources and minimized human error, they can also incur ethical and legal International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality
issues associated with human labor replacement, privacy concerns and a robot tax (Ivanov Management
et al., 2017; Lu et al., 2019; Tuomi et al., 2021). These conflicting views toward service robots Vol. 34 No. 6, 2022
pp. 2337-2358
necessitate a well-structured research agenda for the successful application of robotics in the © Emerald Publishing Limited
0959-6119
hospitality and tourism industry. DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-09-2021-1171
IJCHM Robotics has attracted growing scholarly attention in HTM and broader services as well
34,6 as business fields. Along with the recent growth of HTM research on service robots, a body
of research has critically reviewed the evolution of such research. However, some knowledge
gaps still exist. Specifically, Tung and Law (2017) reviewed the literature on robotics, but
their implications were mainly focused on human-robot interactions. Ivanov et al. (2019)
critically reviewed the evolution of HTM research on robotics based on descriptive,
2338 frequency-based methods. McCartney and McCartney (2020) focused on customer and
employee acceptance of robotics but without a systematic analysis of broader topics on
robotics. Tussyadiah (2020) reviewed research on artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and the
Internet of Things (IoT) but paid relatively less attention to robotics issues. Finally, the
above-mentioned review studies mostly focused on analyzing HTM research on robotics.
To fill these gaps, this study systematically analyzes the intellectual structures of service
robot research in both HTM and broader business management (BM) journals to develop a
future research agenda from a service ecosystem perspective. This perspective is a useful
tool to provide a systematic and holistic view toward robotics in terms of the relationships
among multiple human and nonhuman actors for robotics including customers, employees,
society and organizations. Specifically, this study conducts both a descriptive quantitative
analysis for HTM robotics research and bibliometric cocitation analysis for BM robotics
research. It also qualitatively reviews the intellectual structures of both fields from a service
ecosystem perspective. The specific research questions identified from this study will
contribute to guiding future HTM robotics research.

2. Literature review
2.1 Conceptual issues of service robots
While robotics was initially developed as industrial and manufacturing machinery to assist
with goods production and distribution in the 1950s, its application has expanded to all
sectors of the economy and society including the service industry (Xiao and Kumar, 2019). In
general, a service robot refers to technology that performs useful physical or nonphysical
service tasks for humans without needing instructions (Colby et al., 2016). Zemke et al. (2020)
identified two types of service robots: personal service robots used for noncommercial
purposes (e.g. robot wheelchairs, robot cleaning) and professional service robots used for
commercial purposes (e.g. robot concierge, robot travel agents). The advance of robotics has
promoted the adoption of professional service robots in most service industries including
hospitality and tourism industries.
In defining robotics, we need to consider its conceptual relationship to autonomy and AI.
Autonomy is the main feature of robotics; robotics is a special case of automation displaying
a certain level of intelligence, which makes service robots different from other automation
technologies (Xiao and Kumar, 2019). Huang and Rust (2021) proposed three types of AI:
mechanical AI, thinking AI and feeling AI. Specifically, mechanical AI possesses the lowest
level of intelligence capability used for simple and routine tasks (e.g. self-service, ordering
systems, automatic housekeeping system). Mechanical AI is useful for standardizing service
processes. Thinking AI has a higher level of intelligence for making automatic and intuitive
decisions based on big data analytics (e.g. Amazon’s recommendation system, IBM
Watson). Thinking AI can be the basis for personalizing service experiences through
cumulative data processing. Finally, feeling AI has the most advanced intelligence that
possesses all existing AI capabilities including emotional analytics.
Robot autonomy indicates the extent to which a robot can achieve a certain goal without
external controls. Importantly, the levels of robot automation depend on the levels of AI.
Robots can be either quasi-autonomous based on mechanical AI or fully autonomous based
on either thinking or feeling AI. Automatic robots require different levels of external control, Robot research
such as user engagement in service delivery processes. For example, quasi-automated and future
robotics (e.g. self-service technologies) require learning efforts and engagement from users
in service delivery processes (Shin and Perdue, 2019). On the other hand, fully automatic
research
robotics do not require such learning effort and engagement from users since service
processes are entirely autonomous. This indicates that fully automated service robots have
limited external control, whereas quasi-automated service robots require a certain level of
control by users (Chi et al., 2020; Huang and Rust, 2018). Given that most existing hospitality 2339
and tourism studies address the former case of robotics, this study focuses on fully
automated robotics.
Tussyadiah (2020) identified two different types of fully automated robots: intelligent
robots and pervasive robots. Intelligent robots can perform intellectual activities based on
sensory, emotion, movement and thinking capabilities. The advance of AI enables
intelligent service robots to perform sophisticated tasks based on improved language
processing, image recognition and mobility capabilities (Go et al., 2020; Murphy et al., 2019).
In addition, intelligent robots can process customer data in planning for production,
assigning labor, planning communications and carrying out tasks in action (Noone and
Coulter, 2012). Pervasive robots indicate robots merging from IoT that exist almost
everywhere where interconnected digital elements are present. In HTM, pervasive robots are
used for security, guides, housekeeping, entertainment, delivery, cooking and
communication purposes.

2.2 Service ecosystem perspective

The marketing discipline has shifted to consider the dynamic and interactive nature of the
value creation process in service provisions. Unlike firm-centric views that focus on value-
in-exchange as the primary measure of value, customer-centric views emphasize value-in-
use for the creation of value through customer-firm interactions and combined actions
among multiple actors (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). Building on this service-dominant
logic, a service ecosystem view has been proposed. The service ecosystem refers to a self-
adjusting system of internal and external actors for mutual value creation through multiple
levels of interactions and applications of resources including norms, rules and practices
(Akaka et al., 2013; Vargo and Lusch, 2016). Vargo et al. (2017) argued that value is
constantly cocreated in the service ecosystem, and the process of value creation should be
evaluated from a systemic view that considers the engagement and contributions of multiple
actors.
Recently, a growing number of management and marketing studies have adopted the
service ecosystem perspective to systematically analyze the holistic process of value
creation in service design and innovation. Baron et al. (2018) investigated multiple actors’
innovation activities in the service ecosystem for the reduction of food wastage. Brodie et al.
(2019) analyzed actor engagement processes by encompassing the network structures of
multiple actors in the service ecosystem. Sklyar et al. (2019) examined the embeddedness of
collaborative relationships among intrafirm and interfirm actors for digital servitization.
Chandler et al. (2019) analyzed the emergence of innovation and the facilitation of idea
convergence in the service ecosystem. Finally, Vink et al. (2020) conceptualized service
ecosystem design and proposed future research opportunities for service ecosystem design.
Given that the service ecosystem perspective demonstrates interactions among multiple
human and nonhuman actors at and between macro, meso and micro levels (Akaka and
Vargo, 2015; Baron et al., 2018), it is a useful theoretical lens to understand the inclusive and
holistic value creation processes associated with robotics in hospitality and tourism
IJCHM (Lusch et al., 2016). Specifically, this study proposes four main actors in the service
34,6 ecosystem of robotics: society, management, employees and customers. The interaction
between robotics and each actor can be used as a theoretical lens to analyze robotics
research and provide future research directions.
Specifically, the relationship between robotics and multiple actors shows how robots are
implemented, adopted and used to create value for each stakeholder. First, the relationship
2340 between robotics and customers explains customer technology adoption, interaction and
service experience issues. The relationship between robotics and employees includes issues
such as employee technology adoption, coexistence in the workplace, role change and job
performance issues. The relationship between robotics and management indicates
managerial adoption of robotics, managerial effectiveness of robotics and other
management issues on robotics in the hospitality and tourism industry. Finally, the
relationship between robotics and society represents the broad society or industry robotics
issues associated with government policies, ethics and social norms.

3. Methodology
3.1 Quantitative and cocitation analysis
To provide a holistic view on the evolution of service robot research, this study analyzed
both HTM research and BM research. For the scholarly data analysis, a dual approach was
adopted. First, given the relatively small quantity of HTM research on robotics, all existing
robotics studies published in HTM journals were collected for analysis. Second, this study
used bibliometric cocitation analysis to identify foundational studies on service robots
published in broader BM journals. Cocitation analysis has been one of the main bibliometric
techniques to systematically identify the structure and base of a knowledge domain based
on the cocitation patterns in the scholarly literature (Chen, 2014; Shin and Perdue, 2019).
Given that there is an intellectual relationship if two articles are cited by a subsequent
article, the high frequency of cocitation between two articles is evidence of foundational
knowledge.

3.2 Data acquisition

For scholarly data collections, we used several reliable data sources including the ISI Web of
Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar to search for peer-reviewed academic
articles focused on service robots (Fetscherin and Heinrich, 2015). Following the approach
adopted in most previous bibliometric studies (Ramos-Rodríguez and Ruíz-Navarro, 2004;
Shin and Perdue, 2019), only peer-reviewed journal articles written in English were collected
for the analysis as they are likely to represent well-established academic knowledge.
For the data collection of HTM research, as a pilot data collection, several relevant
keywords, such as “robot,” “robotics,” “artificial intelligence,” “AI,” “automation,”
“embodied agents,” “internet of things” and “IoT” were used to search for academic articles
on service robots. After reviewing the collected articles, the author decided to use two
keywords, “robot” or “robotics” in the article data collection. Although other keywords
resulted in extensive article collections, most of them were not exclusively focused on
robotics. This supports the view that AI and automation are the main features of robotics;
they are not necessarily the same as robotics (Tussyadiah, 2020). Since the data collection
was performed in the journal category of “Hospitality Leisure and Tourism,” additional
keywords (e.g. hotel, hospitality, travel, tourism) were not necessary.
Initially, 64 articles including the word “robot” or “robotics” in either article title or article
keywords published between 2012 and 2021 (by December) in leading hospitality and
tourism journals were collected. The author carefully reviewed the collected articles to
ascertain whether they were highly relevant to robotics issues. Fifty-seven articles were Robot research
finally chosen for data analysis except for five critical literature review research articles; and future
review studies were analyzed separately for developing a future research agenda on research
robotics. The search was completed in December 2021.
Regarding the collection of robotics research published in BM journals, several relevant
keywords including robotics, robot, service, automation, artificial intelligence, IoT were
used for pilot data collection. After reviewing the collected scholarly data, the combinations 2341
of keywords, such as “service” and “robot” or “service” and “robotics” were used to collect
research on service robots. Specifically, articles including the keywords in either title,
keywords or abstract were retrieved. Initially, 144 articles were collected from the ISI Web of
Science and after careful reviews of article titles and abstracts, 132 articles published
between 2002 and 2021 (by December) were chosen; Web of Science was only selected for the
BM scholarly data collection due to its high compatibility with the Citespace software. The
data collection was completed in December 2021. The 132 articles had a total of 5,986
citations for cocitation analysis. Figure 1 shows the data collection process.

3.3 Analysis
All HTM articles were qualitatively reviewed in terms of the four ecosystem relationships
between robotics and the four actors. Key information including author, publication year,
research purpose, research focus, research method and main implication were organized for
further reviews. Regarding BM articles, Citespace was used for cocitation analysis (Chen,
2006). Citespace is regarded as one of the most useful software programs for cocitation
analysis (Xie, 2015). The cocitation analysis identified highly cocited articles based on
cocitation frequency to identify intellectual foundations (Chen, 2014). To add further insight
into the interpretations of the results, highly cocited articles were qualitatively analyzed in
terms of the four relationship groups of the robotics service ecosystem, and the
characteristics of each article were reviewed with the goal of analyzing the foundational

Records identified from ISI Web

Identification

of Science, Scopus, Science

Direct, and Google Scholar:

Databases (HTM articles n = 64)

Databases (BM articles n = 144)

Records excluded for the lack of

Screening

relevance to robotics issues

HTM articles (n = 7)
BM articles (n = 12)

Figure 1.
HTM Studies included in review
Included

Identification of
(n = 57)
BM Studies included in review
scholarly data via
(n = 132) databases
IJCHM knowledge of service robot research and comparing the results with the results of the HTM
34,6 article analysis.

4. Results
4.1 Overview of hospitality and tourism management robot research
In terms of the actor relationships of the service ecosystem, most research has heavily
2342 focused on the relationship between customers and robotics, such as customer-robot
interaction (28 articles, 49.1%) and customer robotics adoption (13 articles, 22.8%). In
addition, the decision-making process (three articles, 5.3%) and robotics image (two articles,
3.5%) were addressed in some research. Regarding the relationship between management
and robotics, managerial robotics adoption was the main topic (five articles, 8.8%) and
research focused on a leadership and human resource management issues (one article,
1.8%). The relationships between robotics and society (three articles, 5.3%) and between
robotics and employees (two articles, 3.5%) received relatively limited attention. The most
frequently used methodologies concentrated on quantitative surveys (13 articles, 22.8%),
experimental (11 articles, 19.3%) and mixed methods using interviews and surveys and
interviews and experiments (11 articles, 19.3%). Qualitative interviews (eight articles, 14%)
and conceptual reviews (eight articles, 14%) were less frequently used in HTM robot
research. Other methods used in HTM robot research included sentiment analysis, case
study and mathematical modeling (six articles, 10.5%) (See Table 1). The following sections
provide details of the HTM robotics studies.
4.1.1 Robotics-customer relationship. Most HTM research analyzes customer-robot
interaction issues, such as robot service experiences and perceived service qualities.
Specifically, some HTM research analyzed the structures of robot service experiences by
identifying experience dimensions, such as emotion, human-oriented perception, embodiment,
feeling of security and coexperience with robots (Tung and Au, 2018); functional, relational
and social-emotions aspects of robot services (Fuentes-Moraleda et al., 2020); and sensory,

Research topics Frequency (%) Research method Frequency (%)

Ecosystem Specific focus

relationship
Robotics-customer Customer-robot 28(49.1%) Survey 13(22.8%)
relationship interaction
Customer robot 23(22.8%) Experiment 11(19.3%)
adoption
Decision-making 3(5.3%) Mixed method 11(19.3%)
process
Robotics image 2(3.5%) Conceptual review 8(14%)
Robotics- Managerial robotics 5(8.8%) Qualitative approach (e.g. 8(14%)
management adoption qualitative interview,
relationship content analysis, etc.)
Leadership and human 1(1.8%) Others (e.g. sentiment 6(10.5%)
resource management analysis, case study,
mathematical modeling,
etc.)
Table 1. Robotics-society Industrial robotics 3(5.3%)
Topics and methods relationship adoption
of HTM robot Robotics-employee Employee-robot 2(3.5%)
research relationship interaction
intellectual, affective, behavioral and social experiences (Jiménez-Barreto et al., 2021). Most Robot research
studies focused on understanding how service users perceive the quality of robot services in and future
terms of embodiment, human orientation, safety, emotions and coexperience (Milman et al.,
2020) and human orientation and safety quality (Milman et al., 2020). While service failure
research
and recovery is the main topic of HTM research on customer interactions with employees,
only limited research has paid attention to robot service failure and recovery issues (Hu et al.,
2021). Further research may need to focus on this issue.
A body of HTM research analyzes customer robotics adoption by identifying the 2343
antecedents of robot use intention. Several studies focused on technical differences between
existing technologies and robotics to consider the unique nature of robotics adoption. Lu
et al. (2019) developed a multidimensional Service Robot Integration Willingness Scale
comprising positive antecedents (performance efficacy, intrinsic motivation, facilitating
conditions and emotions) and a negative antecedent (anthropomorphism) of robotics
adoption. Similarly, Lee et al. (2021) proposed both functional aspects (e.g. perceived
importance, performance expectancy and facilitation condition) and emotional aspects (e.g.
social presence, hedonic motivation and innovativeness) of robot adoption factors. A body of
research identified key antecedents of initial robot adoption, such as trust (Park, 2020;
Tussyadiah et al., 2020), anthropomorphism (Murphy et al., 2019; Shin and Jeong, 2020;
Zhang et al., 2021) and perceived value (Wang et al., 2021). Regarding the uncanny valley
theory, there are conflicting results about the effectiveness of anthropomorphism of service
robots (Akdim et al., 2021; Zhu and Chang, 2020).
Regarding robotics adoption, some HTM research applied the technology acceptance
model (TAM) by extending the constructs of TAM, such as perceived ease of use and
perceived usefulness. Go et al. (2020) developed interactive TAM by proposing technology
characteristics (e.g. type of robot and machine learning applications), individual
characteristics (e.g. self-efficacy and norm), perceived interactivity and perceived enjoyment
as antecedents of using robot services. Along with perceived usefulness and ease of use, De
Kervenoael et al. (2020) proposed empathy and information sharing as two antecedents that
impact robot adoption. Still, further approaches should include experiential or situational
factors into the adoption framework of robot services. In addition, while most studies focus
on the initial adoption of robotics, except for a few studies (Lei et al., 2021), there has been
relatively little research that has focused on factors influencing the reuse behaviors of
service robots.
Compared to the issues of customer robot interactions and acceptance, only a limited
amount of research has focused on customer decision-making issues. Most studies
demonstrated the significant impact of robotics implemented at hotels or destinations on
prospective hotel customers’ hotel selection behavior (Zhong et al., 2020). In the COVID-19
pandemic context, Sam et al. (2021) found that hotel customers prefer robot-staffed hotels to
human-staffed hotels for their safety and social distancing concerns. In addition, some
research analyzes how robotics influences the image of hospitality properties. For example,
Hwang et al. (2020) analyzed the motivation-image development processes of robot
restaurants and found significant effects of functional, hedonic and cognitive aspects of
motivated innovativeness on the overall image of robotic restaurants. Still, further research
needs to analyze which factors (e.g. attitude toward robots, degree of robotization, perceived
benefit, expectations) influence decision-making behaviors to choose robotized properties
and willingness to pay for robot services (Ivanov and Webster, 2021).
Interestingly, HTM research proposed mixed customer views toward robot services;
customers perceive robotics as a double-edged sword for hospitality and tourism businesses.
Fusté-Forné (2021) identified the advantages, disadvantages and uncertainties about robot
IJCHM chefs in restaurants. According to the findings, customers believe that robotics will improve
34,6 the efficiency of service processes and reduce operational costs but will also threaten the
meaning of hospitality service. On the other hand, Zemke et al. (2020) found that restaurant
customers are concerned about the lack of human touch, food safety and cleanliness in
robot-based restaurants. Some research shows that service values and experiences may
depend on the type of employee; robot and human employees moderate how customers
2344 perceive value, which influences memorable brand experiences (Hwang et al., 2021).
However, one key limitation is that these studies only focused on a single cultural context,
whereas the customer experiences of robot services may depend on different cultural
contexts (Choi et al., 2021).
4.1.2 Robotics-management relationship. In terms of the relationship between robotics
and management, there has been relatively fewer studies. Recently, some HTM research has
concentrated on managerial adoption issues in the COVID-19 context. Zeng et al. (2020)
discussed a wide range of managerial robotics adoption in hospitality and tourism
industries during and after the pandemic. Seyitog
lu and Ivanov (2020) proposed multiple
types of service delivery systems in terms of the balance between human and robot services
after the pandemic. Similar with research on customer robotics adoption, most studies have
attempted to identify which factors influence the managerial adoption of robotics. For
example, Kuo et al. (2017) identified three demand factors (government support, capability
for market development and future industry development) and three supply factors
(capability for technology development, capability for raising money and capability for
talent development) that influence robotics adoption in hotels.
4.1.3 Robotics-society/employee relationship. Compared to other research topics, only a
handful of HTM studies focused on the relationship between robotics and society and
between robotics and employees. Some research (Webster and Ivanov, 2019) provided a
broad overview of the industrial adoption of robotics and discussed the impact of robotics
on the economy including hospitality and tourism. Most recently, studies have focused on
the role of service robots in promoting social distancing in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seyitog
lu and Ivanov (2021) argued that tourism companies need to care about not only
keeping physical distancing between travelers and employees/residents but also protecting
social connectedness between them since the adoption of robots may result in less human
contact and social support in the industry. As for the linkage between robotics and
employees, Vatan and Dogan (2021) conducted qualitative interviews with Turkish hotel
employees to identify employees’ positive and negative attitudes toward service robots.

4.2 Business management robot research

Article cocitation analysis was used to identify influential BM articles on service robots;
articles with high frequency of cocitation are likely to have foundational or crucial
intellectual ideas in a field (Chen, 2006, 2014). Focusing on the top 13 articles that have
relatively high cocitation frequency (>10), each article was manually and qualitatively
reviewed following the same approach adopted in analyzing HTM robotics articles.
4.2.1 Robotics-customer relationship. Similar to HTM research, a body of BM studies has
focused on the ecosystem relationship between robotics and customers by analyzing robot
service experience, robot adoption and decision-making behaviors. For example, Cai  c et al.
(2018) adopted value cocreation as a theoretical framework to explain how socially assistive
service robots cocreate or codestruct value in health-care services. Focusing on robot service
experiences, van Doorn et al. (2017) proposed four forms of technology-infused service
experiences in terms of levels of automated and human social presences. Regarding
technology acceptance issues, some studies have extended existing theoretical frameworks
to analyze how consumers use robotics. As heavily examined in HTM research, Mende et al. Robot research
(2019) concentrated on the effectiveness of robot anthropomorphism by empirically finding and future
that humanoid robots can trigger consumers’ negative compensatory behaviors (e.g. over-
spending, increased food consumption).
research
4.2.2 Robotics-employee relationship. Unlike HTM research, some BM research addresses
the technology-employee relationship, such as job replacement issues. For example, Huang
and Rust (2018) developed a theory of AI job replacement that explains the four stages of job
2345
replacement according to the development of AI. They also proposed practical guidelines for
the successful coexistence of service robots and human employees. Focusing on labor
replacement issues caused by automation and the adoption of robots (e.g. mobile robots,
industrial robots, surgical robots), Frey and Osborne (2017) systematically analyzed the
number of jobs that can be replaced by the development of automation and categorized them
into high-, medium- and low-risk jobs. According to this analysis, most hospitality and
tourism jobs are at high risk of job replacement: front employees (95% of risk), tour guides
(91% of risk), restaurant servers (86% or risk) and restaurant chefs (96% of risk). Other
studies mostly pay attention to new employee roles in the robot-based economy (Larivière
et al., 2017).
4.2.3 Robotics-management/society relationship. Similar with HTM research, there has
been limited BM research examining the relationships between robotics and management/
society. Only one research project focused on robot-management relationships. Belanche
et al. (2020) developed a framework for managerial robotics adoption in the light of robotics
design, customer features and service encounter characteristics. In terms of methodologies,
similar to HTM research, most studies (10 studies) adopted qualitative approaches
(qualitative literature review and qualitative interview), and three studies used quantitative
methodologies (experimental design, measure development and econometric analysis). This
trend shows that highly cocited studies focus on developing theoretical and conceptual
knowledge of service robots based on qualitative analyses (Huang and Rust, 2018; Van
Doorn et al., 2017).

5. Future research opportunities

Based on a critical review of HTM and BM robot research, Table 2 explains future research
questions for the ecosystem relationships of robotics along with key constructs, frameworks
and theories for each actor relationship. The following sections provide details of future
research questions.

5.1 Research on the robotics-customer relationship

While most HTM and BM research (De Kervenoael et al., 2020; Fuentes-Moraleda et al., 2020)
used or extended TAM as a theoretical tool to explain customer robot adoption, it is critical
to consider the premise of TAM – certain technology functions should be performed by
users when they accept such technology (Venkatesh et al., 2003). On the other hand,
automated and intelligent service robots require limited knowledge and efforts from
customers when they decide to use the technologies since technologies are already
implemented during service delivery processes. This indicates that the constructs of TAM,
such as perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, may not correctly represent the
theoretical nature of robotics adoption. In fact, Lu et al. (2019) found the unsuitability of
TAM in understanding consumers’ willingness to accept service robots. Thus, the following
research question (RQ) is proposed:
IJCHM
Actor relationships of Key constructs, frameworks and
34,6 service ecosystem theories Future research questions

Robotics-customer Service experience dimensions  How is the nature of robotics adoption

relationship Perceived service quality different from the nature of existing
Customer attitudes and emotions technology adoption?
toward service robots  Is there a theoretical framework that better
2346 Service efficiency explains robotics adoption processes than
Human touch and attachment TAM?
Robot service attributes  How do multidimensional cognitive,
Robot adoption psychological, social-emotional,
Customer expectation environmental and relational factors either
Service quality gaps promote or restrict robotics adoption?
Robot image  What factors and attributes of service
Trust robotics (e.g. appearance, functions, image)
Value cocreation influence customer or tourist decision-making
Social presence behavior?
Customer decision-making  How are factors that influence the initial
Cognitive-affective-conative model adoption of service robots different from
Hedonic and utilitarian value factors that influence the continued use of
Technology acceptance model service robots after adoption?
(TAM)  Why is there a difference in the factors that
Anthropomorphism influence the use of robots between initial
Uncanny valley theory adoption and continued use of robots?
Interpersonal communication  How do multidimensional anthropomorphic
theory attributes of service robots influence robot
adoption and experiences?
 What is the optimum level of humanoid
appearance of service robots for initial
adoption and continued use of service robots?
 How is the nature of robot-mediated service
experience different from human-based
service experience?
 What are the functional, emotional and
social interaction values of robot service that
make the experience more special and
memorable?
Robotics-employee Trust  What are the optimal roles of service robots
relationship Employee value cocreation and human employees in a Co-Bot-based
Attitude toward robots working environment?
Job replacement  How would service robots and human
Employee role changes employees effectively deal with different
Robot service failure and recovery service tasks to meet customer service needs
Job satisfaction or stress in various hospitality industries?
Job insecurity  How do service robots impact hospitality
Co-Bot working environment and tourism employees’ tasks, performance,
Job design theory stress, job insecurity and turnover?
 What is the best way to reduce the negative
impacts of robotics while maximizing the
Table 2. positive impacts in the workplace in terms of
Key constructs, factors such as service efficiency, accuracy
theories and future and performance?
research questions  How should human employees be deployed
for robot service to efficiently support the recovery of robot
ecosystem (continued)
 Robot research
Actor relationships of Key constructs, frameworks and
service ecosystem theories Future research questions and future
research
service failure?
 How do the different attributions of service
failure impact customer evaluation of the
service recovery experience?
Robotics-management Managerial adoption  Which managerial factors (e.g. 2347
relationship Management communications communication, leadership, cost) influence
Robot delivery system the adoption of service robots in hospitality
Managerial capabilities and tourism organizations?
Efficiency of robot services  How do internal and external stakeholders
Upskilling and reskilling strategies influence managerial decisions to adopt
Leadership styles service robots?
Levels of robot operations  How can companies managerially enhance
Cost-benefit framework and measure the efficiency of robotics?
 How does robotics improve the operational
efficiency in terms of costs and benefits in
hospitality and tourism organizations?
 How can human employees be effectively
trained and educated in terms of upskilling
and reskilling strategies in robotized
workplaces?
Robotics-society Industrial robot adoption  How can the legal and ethical issues about
relationship Robot policies privacy concerns and legal rights of service
Privacy concerns robots be addressed?
Regal status of robots  What policies and moral duties should we
Feeling of social connectedness develop and successfully implement for
Physical distancing service robots in the hospitality and tourism
Robot tax industry?
Economic inequality  How should unemployment and economic
inequality originating from labor replacement
by service robots in the hospitality and
tourism industry be handled?
 What labor policies are needed to deal with
societal issues, such as lower wages, reduced
hiring and economy inequality caused by the
adoption of robots?
 How should service robots be successfully
implemented to provide a feeling of social
connectedness while increasing the physical
distancing between travelers and hospitality
employees in the pandemic context?
 What are the advantages and
disadvantages of a robot tax for hospitality
and tourism businesses and the broader
society?
 How should sound tax policies on the
successful adoption of service robots in the
hospitality and tourism industry be Table 2.
developed?
IJCHM RQ1.How is the nature of robotics adoption different from the nature of existing
34,6 technology adoption?
RQ2. Is there a theoretical framework that better explains robotics adoption processes
than TAM?
Future HTM research needs to explore the cognitive (e.g. perceived effectiveness, trust
2348 perceived congruity with robot appearance, performance expectancy) and psychological (e.g.
motivation, personality, technology readiness) factors for robotics adoption. In addition, social-
emotional (e.g. emotion, perceived humanness, perceived social presence), environmental (e.g.
crowding) and relational (e.g. rapport and trust) factors can also have significant impacts on
adoption (Hou et al., 2021). In addition, further research needs to analyze constraining factors
such as perceived risk of service failure, repulsion and human attachment for robotics adoption.
Considering that only limited HTM research focuses on the relationship between robotics and
decision-making behavior (Sam et al., 2021; Zhong et al., 2020), future HTM research needs to
analyze which attributes of service robots impact tourism destination or hospitality property
choice behavior. More specifically, in the restaurant context, it would be meaningful to
understand how robots contribute to food safety, quality and delivery, which can form
customer expectations about robot food services in decision-making:

RQ3. How do multidimensional cognitive, psychological, social-emotional,

environmental and relational factors either promote or restrict robotics adoption?
RQ4. What factors and attributes of service robotics (e.g. appearance, functions, image)
influence customer or tourist decision-making behavior?
While the adoption of robotics is a central topic in both HTM and BM research, some
hospitality customers and tourists are less likely to keep using service robots after adoption
(Fusté-Forné, 2021). Therefore, an important issue is how to sustain customer engagement in
robot-based services. While most existing studies focus on the initial adoption of robot
services by identifying the key antecedents of robot adoption, the factors that determine the
adoption of service robots and their continued use may be different. For example, the initial
acceptance may be dependent upon the perceived image of robots (e.g. coolness),
motivational drive (e.g. novelty seeking tendency) and hedonic values (Assaker and Hallak,
2013; Cha, 2020). However, continued use may be highly determined by the functional,
utilitarian and relational capabilities of robotics; the functionality and performance
dimension of robotics are the most important factors influencing continued robot use. This
difference may be associated with how hedonic and utilitarian values of robot services are
perceived by customers in different service stages. Thus, future research needs to identify
how different factors influence initial robotics adoption and continued use after adoption:

RQ5. How are factors that influence the initial adoption of service robots different from
factors that influence the continued use of service robots after adoption?
RQ6. Why is there a difference in the factors that influence the use of robots between
initial adoption and continued use of robots?
In terms of robot design (e.g. facial features, color, shape, size, voice), humanoid appearance
and social/emotional characteristics can influence robot adoption and service experiences
(Tung and Law, 2017; Zhang et al., 2021). Based on the uncanny valley theory, a body of
HTM and BM research found positive impacts of anthropomorphism on robotics adoption
(Zemke et al., 2020; Zhu and Chang, 2020), while some research found its negative impacts
(Akdim et al., 2021; Christou et al., 2020). The inconclusive results about the impact of Robot research
anthropomorphism on robot adoption and service experiences call for further research to and future
understand the underlying mechanism for the difference responses to diverse forms of
robots. In particular, future research needs to examine how multiple dimensions of human-
research
like attributes (e.g. human-like appearance, voice, language style) influence customer robot
adoption, service experience and evaluation:

RQ7. How do multidimensional anthropomorphic attributes of service robots influence 2349

robot adoption and experiences?
RQ8. What is the optimum level of humanoid appearance of service robots for initial
adoption and continued use of service robots?
Along with customer robotics adoption, robot-mediated service experience is an important
topic of HTM research (Tung and Law, 2017). Although hospitality and tourism service has
been historically characterized as “high-touch and low-tech,” the adoption of robotics and
automation technologies will create a “low-touch and high-tech” service with limited human
interactions in service experiences (Shin and Kang, 2020). However, hospitality customers
and travelers may still seek personal and emotional touch in robot-based services (Milman
et al., 2020. To better understand the authenticity and value of robot-mediated service
experiences, it is important to explore the multidimensional nature of robot service
experiences (sensory, intellectual, behavioral, affective and social) (Jiménez-Barreto et al.,
2021) and how these experiences lead to individuals’ evaluation of service experiences. In
addition, further research needs to analyze how robot services create functional, emotional
and social interaction value in customer service experience:

RQ9. How is the nature of robot-mediated service experience different from human-
based service experience?
RQ10. What are the functional, emotional and social interaction values of robot service
that make the experience more special and memorable?

5.2 Research on the robotics-employee relationship

Understanding how employees adapt to the technology-infused working environment is a
critical issue, especially for labor-intensive hospitality and tourism businesses. Future
research needs to focus on the concept of Cobots (or collaborative robots), which refers to
robots working alongside humans within a shared space. Regarding the differences in
service capabilities, service robots can support human employees by allowing them to focus
more on creative and complex services while the robots carry out repetitive, simple and
routine tasks (Seyitog
lu and Ivanov, 2020; Tuomi et al., 2021). On the other hand, highly
advanced service robots can play a leading role in service provision, and human employees
may need to support them. Importantly, the role of robots may depend on the context of
hospitality industries; more complex roles may be played by the hotel industry, whereas
repetitive and simple work, such as serving and ordering, will be mainly performed by
robots in the restaurant industry. Future research needs to classify the different service
tasks appropriate to service robots and human workers:

RQ11. What are the optimal roles of service robots and human employees in a cobot-
based working environment?
IJCHM RQ12. How would service robots and human employees effectively deal with different
34,6 service tasks to meet customer service needs in various hospitality industries?
The concept of value cocreation or codestruction could be a theoretical tool to analyze
employee organizational behavior in labor-intensive hospitality and tourism businesses.
Service robots can contribute to enhancing the job satisfaction and quality of life of
employees who can have more opportunities to engage in creative and more genuine tasks.
2350 On the other hand, service robots can be a source of employee job stress since they have to
adapt to a new working environment and learn new service roles and skills. Importantly,
service robots will be a significant threat to the job security of human employees; feelings of
job insecurity can have a negative impact on employee job performance and belongingness
(Coupe, 2019). Collectively, HTM scholars need to better understand how a robot-infused
working environment either cocreates or codestructs value for employees.

RQ13. How do service robots impact hospitality and tourism employees’ tasks,
performance, stress, job insecurity and turnover?
RQ14. What is the best way to reduce the negative impacts of robotics while
maximizing the positive impacts in the workplace in terms of factors such as
service efficiency, accuracy and performance?
While existing HTM research has paid limited attention to service recovery and failure in
robot-based service delivery, robotics can create more problems and service failures than the
achievement of service goals. Along with technical errors or malfunctions resulting from the
immaturity of robot technologies, other management factors (e.g. lack of employee training,
system upgrade) can also cause failures of robot services. As found by Hu et al. (2021), the
effectiveness of service recovery performed by human employees can be higher than robot-
based recovery since it is interpreted as sincerer and emotional. In this regard, human staff
can better cope with the service failure of robotics by satisfying customer needs (Choi et al.,
2020). Future research needs to analyze how human employees assist with the recovery of
robot service failure and how different attributions of service failure (service robots vs
internal vs other externals) influence customer evaluation of service recovery:

RQ15. How should human employees be deployed to efficiently support the recovery of
robot service failure?
RQ16. How do the different attributions of service failure impact customer evaluation of
the service recovery experience?

5.3 Research on the robotics-management relationship

Along with the increasing prevalence of robotics in HTM, firms and organizations need
guidance for the successful adoption and integration of robotics. Given that most HTM
research has adopted a case study and conceptual approach (Noone and Coulter, 2012; Zeng
et al., 2020), further research needs to empirically analyze the managerial factors that
accelerate or hinder the adoption of robotics in HTM organizations. In particular, future
research needs to focus on the role of leadership for robot initiatives (Xu et al., 2020) since
implementing robotics accompanies high costs and rapid changes in service operations. A
holistic view to understand the impact of the many internal and external stakeholders (e.g.
owner, management company, franchising company, investor, employee, customer) on
robotics adoption would be helpful since each stakeholder has a different attitude toward the
managerial adoption of service robots; if target customers prefer the human touch in the Robot research
service experience, firms need to reconsider implementing service robots: and future
RQ17. Which managerial factors (e.g. communication, leadership, cost) influence the research
adoption of service robots in hospitality and tourism organizations?
RQ18. How do internal and external stakeholders influence managerial decisions to
adopt service robots? 2351
In general, the efficiency of robotics has mainly been investigated from the user (customer)
perspective by measuring their perception and experience toward service robots (Mende
et al., 2019; Tung and Au, 2018). However, efficiency needs to be measured at a managerial
level. An important question is, therefore, how to improve the efficiency of service robots
and how they improve overall managerial efficiency. More specifically, future research
needs to develop a framework to outline and identify the cost and benefit of adopting
robotics in hospitality and tourism organizations. In terms of cost, for example, service
robots need regular and continued training and upgrading throughout the implementation
of robotics (Xiao and Kumar, 2019). Extra cost needs to be considered since new courses and
curricula for training employees should be developed. Hospitality and tourism firms need to
establish strategies to effectively train and educate human employees along with robots in
terms of upskilling (teaching employees advanced skills) or reskilling (teaching employees
new skills) strategies:

RQ19. How can companies managerially enhance and measure the efficiency of
robotics?
RQ20. How does robotics improve the operational efficiency in terms of costs and
benefits in hospitality and tourism organizations?
RQ21. How can human employees be effectively trained and educated in terms of
upskilling and reskilling strategies in robotized workplaces?

5.4 Research on the robotics-society relationship

Although the integration of robotics in hospitality and tourism businesses involves various
ethical and legal issues (Xiao and Kumar, 2019), the relationship between robotics and
society has been one of the most under-examined areas in both HTM and BM research. In
this regard, future HTM research needs to analyze robot-related policies and laws associated
with safety, insurance, privacy and regulation (Bertolini and Aiello, 2018). Specifically,
frontline service robots equipped with a large number of sensors and advanced biometric
capabilities can raise privacy and security concerns. How to use personal data and reduce
the risk of data disclosure will be a central issue. In addition, whether it is plausible to assign
some rights and responsibilities to hospitality and tourism service robots is unclear. This
issue leads to the next discussion about at what point intelligent service robots are legally
and morally considered a “person” with the same legal status as human employees instead
of a “tool” with a different legal status in the hospitality and tourism industry:

RQ22. How can the legal and ethical issues about privacy concerns and legal rights of
service robots be addressed?
RQ23. What policies and moral duties should we develop and successfully implement
for service robots in the hospitality and tourism industry?
IJCHM The next crucial legal issue is labor replacement and a robot tax. While service robots can
34,6 help address the issues of seasonal employment and labor utilization in the hospitality
and tourism industry (Kuo et al., 2017), it will increase the unemployment rate and
exacerbate economic inequality as well (Abbott and Bogenschneider, 2018). In particular,
labor-intensive hotel and restaurant businesses will experience a significant level of
under- and unemployment, which will result in a more competitive and unfavorable labor
2352 market characterized by lower wages and reduced hiring. Future HTM research needs to
focus on labor policies about robotics and examine how labor policies deal with the social
challenges of unemployment and economic inequality. In addition, as suggested by
Seyitog
lu and Ivanov (2021), future research needs to analyze how the adoption of
robotics influences the social value of hospitality services in terms of social
connectedness, emotional bonding and psychological distance in the context of the
COVID-19 pandemic:

RQ24. How should unemployment and economic inequality originating from labor
replacement by service robots in the hospitality and tourism industry be
handled?
RQ25. What labor policies are needed to deal with societal issues, such as lower
wages, reduced hiring and economy inequality caused by the adoption of
robots?
RQ26. How should service robots be successfully implemented to provide a feeling of
social connectedness while increasing the physical distancing between travelers
and hospitality employees in the pandemic context?
Finally, tax is very important to the debate on robotics in future HTM research. Given that a
major source of tax revenue comes from workers, the reduced number of tax-paying
workers due to the adoption of robotics will cut revenues for governments. This has spurred
a wide debate on a robot tax – whether a company should pay income or corporation tax on
using service robots (Silkin, 2018). Abbott and Bogenschneider (2018) insisted that tax
systems and policies should be changed to treat both service robots and human employees
in the same way. While a robot tax would increase taxable profit and slow the rate of job
replacement, some challenges to a robot tax should be noted, such as the unclear definition
of a robot and the reduced productivity of service robots (Silkin, 2018). Considering the
significant impact of robot adoptions on the labor structure of hospitality and tourism
businesses, future HTM research needs to focus on the economic and legal issues associated
with a robot tax and examine how these taxes would impact the management of service
robots:

RQ27. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a robot tax for hospitality and
tourism businesses and the broader society?
RQ28. How should sound tax policies on the successful adoption of service robots in the
hospitality and tourism industry be developed?

5.5 Research methodology suggestions

Further qualitative and case-study approaches would be worthwhile in exploring the
theoretical frameworks and conceptual structures of robotics. While some HTM research
has used preexisting theoretical tools in examining qualitative data (Tung and Au, 2018),
future research needs to take a more explorative approach in collecting and analyzing
qualitative data to delve deeper into robotics issues. In addition, future HTM research may Robot research
focus on real robot cases to improve empirical evidence. Most HTM robotics research and future
adopting quantitative approaches has used hypothetical scenario-based surveys (Milman research
et al., 2020; Park, 2020) or an experimental design (Shin and Jeong, 2020). While these
methods have been common, given the lack of real robot cases implemented in hospitality
and tourism businesses, there will be a lot more opportunities for conducting field surveys
and experiments, which would enhance the external validity of study findings. 2353

6. General discussion
6.1 Conclusion
Given that various types of service robots have been recently adopted in the hospitality and
tourism industries, a growing number of HTM research has focused on robotics issues. In
this regard, this study systematically analyzed research articles on robotics to provide a
future research agenda. Based on the results of both qualitative and quantitative
bibliometric analyses, the study identified 28 specific research questions for future HTM
research.

6.2 Theoretical implications

This study contributes to understanding the intellectual structures and evolution of rapidly
growing HTM robotics research in terms of the holistic relationship among the four service
ecosystem actors of robotics. To provide a broader view on the evolution of robotic research,
unlike most existing critical review research in hospitality and tourism, this study
comparatively analyzed robotics research in both HTM and BM fields. The proposed
specific research questions will provide future HTM research with directions for the
development of conceptual and empirical knowledge on robotics.

6.3 Practical implications

This study can help hospitality and tourism practitioners identify important issues for the
successful implementation of service robots. While the proposed research questions are
based on the research gaps of existing studies on robots, hospitality and tourism managers
may revisit the questions and refine them or update further questions to address more
critical and practical issues. Importantly, it will be important for both HTM scholars and
practitioners to make collaborations on some research questions.

6.4 Limitations and future research

Some limitations should be addressed for future research. First, there could be
counterarguments that additional actors and their activities should be considered in the
ecosystem. In addition, the network relationships among the multiple actors show that
robotics value is not only created by dyadic robot-actor relationships but also by actor-actor
relationships based on intensified connectedness (Brodie et al., 2019). Therefore, future
research needs to identify other actors and their activities that have not been fully
considered in the current study to examine the service ecosystem of robotics. Finally, while
this study conducted cocitation analysis to identify influential and foundational articles,
future studies need to adopt both qualitative and quantitative approaches to fully capture
the evolution of BM robot articles.
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Further reading
Mori, M. (1970), “Bukimi no tani [the uncanny valley]”, Energy, Vol. 7, pp. 33-35.
Otley, T. (2016), “Robots working in travel industry would improve service”, available at: www.
businesstraveller.com/news/2016/03/09/robots-working-in-travel-industry-would-improve-service/

Corresponding author
Hakseung Shin can be contacted at: hakseung@hanyang.ac.kr

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