Abstract
Service robots are already used for elderly care (Kalogianni, 2015) in the role of sociallyassistive robots (Caic et al., 2018), café and restaurant services (Frey & Osborn, 2017), tending the bars (Tussyadiah et al., 2020), and even for sexual pleasure (Krumins, 2017). For many industries, the COVID-19 pandemic serves as an opportunity for learning how to reimagine and transform the service experience for the future (Berry et al., 2020). Despite the huge potential and actual usage of robots in crisis times (i.e. the COVID-19 pandemic), the academic literature lacks empirical analysis and data showing the effects of such increased usage for such extraordinary purposes. Almost all definitions of service robots entail a certain degree of autonomy, and thus imply a certain degree of social power in an interactive relationship. Even though most studies focus on the perceived autonomy of the robots per se, much fewer studies consider a "power relationship" perspective. Among the few studies, Schweitzer et al. (2019) demonstrated roles of a servant, master, or partner for voice control assistants in smartphones. In a similar vein, Wirtz et al. (2018) made the distinction between professional service roles (PSRs) vs. subordinate service roles (SSRs). Elderly care service robots could be perceived either in creator or destructive roles (Čaić et al., 2018), based on relative power. Our research purpose is to examine the power relationship and consumer attitudes in robotic services and the role of COVID-19 in this relationship. In a pretest, among many service types, we identified two services that the subjects rated as feeling the most powerful and the weakest concerning their encounters with robots as airport check-in robotic service (5.55 over 7) and robotic surgery (4 over 7), t(37)= 4.421, p<.001. The results of the main study conducted before the Covid-19 pandemic regarding the attitudes towards and intention to use low- and high-power robotic services showed more positive attitudes towards robotic check-in (demonstrated to be high-power) compared to robotic surgery (demonstrated to be low-power) (t(98)= 4.421, p<.001; M =4.65; SD =1.17; M =5.49; SD =1.38), irrespective of the person’s sense of power. However, pre-post analysis after the Covid-19 cite as: Merdin-Uygur, E., and Ozturkcan, S., "Consumer Attitudes towards Low vs. High Power Robotic Services and the Covid Pandemic," 2021 Annual Conference of the Academy of Marketing: Reframing Marketing Priorities, July 5-7, 2021, Online. outbreak demonstrated that the attitudes towards robotic airport check-in decreased after the COVID-19 pandemic (t(77)= -2.711, p<.01; M =5.43; SD =1.42 before and M =5.00; SD =1.49 after pandemic), indicating a variability in consumer attitudes towards high-power services, only. There was also no change in participants’ perceived sense of power between two tests. Both tourism and health are areas that consumers started to refrain from as a result of COVID-19. However, our results show that the COVID-19 pandemic effect was only significant in decreasing the attitudes towards robotic check-in (a low power robotic service). Robotic services that hold a relatively powerless position in human interactions (i.e., home assistants and foodordering assistants) are likely to deal with such negative changes during crisis times. There was also no change in participants’ perceived sense of power between two tests.