How employee-robot structural interdependence shapes hospitality frontline employees’ service recovery performance following robot service failures: a psychological ownership perspective

Although hospitality organizations are increasingly relying on frontline employees (FLEs) to address inevitable robot service failures, the factors that motivate FLEs’ recovery performance in this context remain underexplored. Drawing on psychological ownership theory, we investigate how and when structural interdependence (i.e. task and outcome interdependence) between FLEs and service robots affects FLEs’ service recovery performance following robot service failures. Results of partial least squares structural equation modeling indicate that both task and outcome interdependence foster FLEs’ robot-based psychological ownership, which in turn improves their service recovery performance following robot service failures. Furthermore, we find differential moderating effects of robot anthropomorphism: task interdependence has a stronger indirect effect on service recovery performance via psychological ownership when robot anthropomorphism is higher; conversely, outcome interdependence has a stronger indirect effect when robot anthropomorphism is lower. These findings provide important theoretical and practical insights into encouraging FLEs’ collaborative responses to robot service failures.