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.

中文翻译：

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邂逅机器人：旅游服务中顾客的自主行为


服务提供商塑造客户增加利润的愿望，从而可能限制客户的选择和表达。由于目的地的不熟悉和不确定性，这一点在旅游业中尤为突出。根据社会影响理论，我们认为，当客户遇到社会影响较小的服务提供商时，他们会感觉更舒服，行为也更自主。通过五项基于场景的实验和一项现场实验，我们的研究结果表明，与人类服务相比，客户更愿意在机器人服务下发展自主行为。人们认为服务机器人比人类员工具有更少的社会影响力，让客户感觉更舒适，行为更自主。我们还讨论了自我呈现关注和自我构念对此效应的边界条件。这项研究丰富了社会影响理论和消费者自主权的研究，并为旅游服务中机器人的采用提供了可行的见解。