95627 20210902121752.0 doi 10.1108/JOSM-05-2019-0156 sideral 119807 ART-2020-119807 eng Belanche, Daniel Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0002-2291-1409 Robots or frontline employees? Exploring customers’ attributions of responsibility and stability after service failure or success 2020 Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted Purpose: Service robots are taking over the organizational frontline. Despite a recent surge in studies on this topic, extant works are predominantly conceptual in nature. The purpose of this paper is to provide valuable empirical insights by building on the attribution theory. Design/methodology/approach: Two vignette-based experimental studies were employed. Data were collected from US respondents who were randomly assigned to scenarios focusing on a hotel’s reception service and restaurant’s waiter service. Findings: Results indicate that respondents make stronger attributions of responsibility for the service performance toward humans than toward robots, especially when a service failure occurs. Customers thus attribute responsibility to the firm rather than the frontline robot. Interestingly, the perceived stability of the performance is greater when the service is conducted by a robot than by an employee. This implies that customers expect employees to shape up after a poor service encounter but expect little improvement in robots’ performance over time. Practical implications: Robots are perceived to be more representative of a firm than employees. To avoid harmful customer attributions, service providers should clearly communicate to customers that frontline robots pack sophisticated analytical, rather than simple mechanical, artificial intelligence technology that explicitly learns from service failures. Originality/value: Customer responses to frontline robots have remained largely unexplored. This paper is the first to explore the attributions that customers make when they experience robots in the frontline. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/LMP65-18 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/S20-17R info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess by http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ 11.768 2020 NURSING 6 / 346 = 0.017 2020 Q1 T1 MANAGEMENT 6 / 225 = 0.027 2020 Q1 T1 2.657 2020 Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous) 2020 Q1 Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management 2020 Q1 Strategy and Management 2020 Q1 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Casaló, Luis V. Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0002-9643-2814 Flavián, Carlos Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0001-7118-9013 Schepers, Joroen 4011 095 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Direc.Mark.Inves.Mercad. Área Comerci.Investig.Mercados 31, 2 (2020), 267-289 Journal of Service Management Journal of Service Management 1757-5818 839971 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/95627/files/texto_completo.pdf Versión publicada 21294 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/95627/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Versión publicada oai:zaguan.unizar.es:95627 articulos driver 2021-09-02-09:49:51 ARTICLE