Encountering robots: Customers’ autonomous behaviors in tourism services

Abstract

Service providers shape customers’ desires to increase their profits, potentially limiting customer choices and expression. This is prominent in tourism because of the unfamiliarity and uncertainty of destinations. Drawing on social impact theory, we posit that customers feel more comfortable and behave more autonomously when they encounter a service provider with less social impact. Through five scenario-based experiments and one field experiment, our findings illustrate that customers are more willing to develop autonomous behaviors under robotic service than under human service. Service robots are perceived to possess less social influence than human employees, allowing customers to feel more comfortable and behave more autonomously. We also discuss the boundary conditions of self-presentation concern and self-construal on this effect. This study enriches the research on social impact theory and consumer autonomy and provides actionable insights into robotic adoption in tourism services.