Does technology readiness matter? Investigating employee psychological well-being through the lens of social robot anthropomorphism

Purpose Social robot anthropomorphism is widely recognized for performing crucial tasks in supporting the service industry and enhancing the employee experience. This study elucidates how social anthropomorphic robots can influence the psychological well-being of employees in the hotel industry. The study further examines the impact of social robot warmth, psychological ownership and technology readiness in the above relationship. Design/methodology/approach The research utilized an online survey questionnaire for data collection and analysis. Data were collected from Indian hotel employees ( N = 275). Structural equation modeling was applied to validate the conceptual model. The study examines the results using AMOS v25 and the SPSS PROCESS Macro. Findings The study empirically finds that social robot anthropomorphism positively impacts the psychological well-being of hotel employees. Further, it substantiates that despite low technology readiness, social robot anthropomorphism enhances psychological well-being through psychological ownership. Additionally, anthropomorphizing social robots emits warmth, which enhances employees' psychological well-being in the hotel industry. Originality/value These empirical results and theory suggest a novel dimension of anthropomorphism in social robot interactions, significantly impacting the employees' psychological well-being. A moderated mediation relationship is established, which confirms social robot warmth and psychological ownership as mediators and technology readiness as a moderator of the social robot anthropomorphism and employee psychological well-being relationship. The results validate the conceptual model of research that is grounded in the theory of psychological ownership and the realism maximization theory.