Facilitating Employee Intention to Work with Robots

Abstract

Organizations are adopting and integrating robots to work with and alongside their human employees. However, their human employees are not necessarily happy about this new work arrangement. This may be in part due to the increasing fears that robots will eventually take their jobs. Organizations are now facing the challenge of integrating robots into their workforce by encouraging humans to work with their robotic teammates. To address this issue, this study employs similarity and attraction theory to encourage humans to work with and alongside their robotic co-worker. Our research model asserts that surface and deep level similarity with the robot will impact a human’s willingness to work with a robot. We also seek to examine whether risk moderates the importance of both surface and deep level similarity. To empirically examine this model, this proposal presents an experimental design. Results of the study should provide new insights into the benefits and limitations of similarity to encourage humans to work with and alongside their robot co-worker.