Investigating the double-edged sword effect of AI awareness on employee's service innovative behavior

Drawing on the job demand-resource (JD-R) model, the current study constructs a dual-pathway approach which aims to reveal the mixed impact of AI awareness on service innovative behavior. Specifically, this paper argues that AI awareness will both increase employees' emotional exhaustion, inhibiting their service innovative behaviors (strain pathway) and stimulate employees' intrinsic motivation, promoting their service innovative behaviors (motivation pathway). Meanwhile, employees’ future orientation will buffer the strain pathway and strengthen the motivation pathway. Multisource data (n = 317) from China support the proposed theoretical framework. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.