What is it about?
This study uses the uncanny valley theory to examine the effects of perceived human-likeness on employees' fear. Employees tend to fear human-like robots but remain indifferent to non-human-like and low-human-like robots. However, as robots approach near-perfect human likeness, some employees, especially those who are tech-savvy, experience less fear. The fear of robots is also linked to turnover intention within the industry.
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Why is it important?
Previous studies often treat human-likeness as a dichotomous variable, whereas, in reality, it exists on a continuous scale. As one of the first studies examining the effect of robot appearance on employees, this study helps hospitality organizations select the appropriate type of robots to facilitate employee-robot interactions and reduce employee turnover intentions within the industry.
Perspectives
As more robots are introduced into the hospitality workplace, it can be unsettling to see some "zombie-like" robots being deployed. The results validate my beliefs that sometimes "simpler is better". Writing this article has been a great pleasure, as it allowed me to collaborate with new colleagues. We had a lot of fun writing about different robots we watch in tv/ movies, including Wall-E, Terminators, and i-robots.
Cass Shum
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “I was so scared I quit”: Uncanny valley effects of robots’ human-likeness on employee fear and industry turnover intentions, International Journal of Hospitality Management, July 2024, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2024.103762.
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