Integrating robotic servers in Saudi Arabia's rapidly evolving hospitality sector presents a paradoxical challenge: while robotic assistance enhances operational efficiency and adds experiential novelty, its impact on customer satisfaction and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) remains complex and underexplored. Anchored in the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R), Expectation Confirmation Theory (ECT), and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) framework, this study investigates the mediating impact of perceived novelty (PN) and perceived efficiency (PE) on the relationship between the use of robotic assistance (URA) and customer satisfaction (CS), subsequently influencing eWOM. Additionally, it examines the moderating role of service context (SC) on the satisfaction-eWOM linkage within Saudi cultural settings. Data were collected from 348 restaurant customers across Jeddah, Riyadh, and Madinah who experienced robotic service encounters and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings confirm that URA significantly enhances both PN and PE, with efficiency showing a stronger mediating effect on customer outcomes. Service context significantly moderates the CS-eWOM relationship, highlighting the importance of cultural and environmental factors. The results provide actionable insights for restaurant managers to deploy robotic assistance strategically by balancing technological functionality with cu lturally resonant service design, optimizing customer satisfaction and fostering positive electronic advocacy in the Saudi Arabian hospitality market. The study distinguishes the experiential appeal of robotic novelty from the functional contribution of service efficiency and examines their sequential indirect associations with electronic word-of-mouth through satisfaction. The analysis focuses on restaurant customers with first-hand experience with robotic service in three Saudi cities, allowing the model to be examined in an emerging, technology-enabled dining context. By assessing these pathways alongside the conditional role of service context, the study clarifies how customer evaluations of robotic assistance relate to post-encounter communication.
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IRIQAT et al. (2026) studied this question.
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