Adoption of service robots: exploring the emerging trends through the lens of bibliometric analysis

Abstract

PurposeThe aim of this study is to examine the existing literature on service robots in order to identify prominent themes, assess the present state of service robotics research and highlight the contributions of seminal publications in the business, management and hospitality domain.Design/methodology/approachThis study analysed 332 Scopus papers from 1985 to 2022 using bibliometric techniques like citation and co-citation analysis.FindingsThe study findings highlighted that there has been a consistent rise in publications related to service robots. The paper identifies three significant themes in the service robot literature: adoption of service robots in the context of customer service, anthropomorphism and integration of artificial intelligence in robotic service. Furthermore, this study highlights prominent authors, journals, institutions and countries associated with research on service robots and discusses the future research opportunities in this domain.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the service robots’ literature in the hospitality context by compilation of various reference materials using a comprehensive bibliometric analysis. Previous studies do not point out crucial themes in this area, nor do they provide an overview of prominent journals, institutions, authors and trends in this field. Therefore, this study attempts to fill the lacunae.