Abstract
AbstractAdvances in robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence increasingly enable firms to replace human labor with technology, thereby fundamentally transforming how goods and services are produced. From both managerial and societal points of view, it is therefore important to understand demand‐side incentives for firms to employ human labor. We begin to address this question by examining for which products and services consumers are more likely to favor human (vs. robotic) labor. In six studies, we demonstrate that consumers prefer human (vs. robotic) labor more for products with higher (vs. lower) symbolic value (e.g., when expressing something about one's beliefs and personality is of greater importance). We theorize that this is because consumers have stronger uniqueness motives in more (vs. less) symbolic consumption contexts (and associate human labor more strongly with product uniqueness). In line with this account, we demonstrate that individual differences in need for uniqueness moderate the interaction between production mode and symbolic motives and that a measure of uniqueness motives mediates the effect of consumption context on preferences for human (vs. robotic) production.
Highlights
Advances in robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence increasingly enable firms to replace human labor with technology, thereby fundamentally transforming how goods and services are produced
Comparing the more symbolic consumption contexts, preferences for the printed poster on the right were not significantly different when the poster was designed by a human (Mmore symbolic = 4.39, SD = 2.00 vs. Mless symbolic = 4.30, SD = 2.26, F(1, 318) = 0.07, p = .79), but were significantly lower when the poster was designed by an algorithm (Mmore symbolic = 2.31, SD = 1.79 vs. Mless symbolic = 3.25, SD = 2.08, F(1, 318) = 8.74, p < .01)
In line with our theorizing that robotic labor should be less suited to satisfy uniqueness motives, this pattern indicates that consumers dislike robotic production for symbolic products
Summary
Automation, and artificial intelligence increasingly enable firms to replace human labor with technology, thereby fundamentally transforming how goods and services are produced. We demonstrate that consumers prefer human (vs robotic) labor more for products with higher (vs lower) symbolic value (e.g., when expressing something about one’s beliefs and personality is of greater importance) We theorize that this is because consumers have stronger uniqueness motives in more (vs less) symbolic consumption contexts (and associate human labor more strongly with product uniqueness). Prior literature documents reactance against autonomous technologies (e.g., Leung, Paolacci, & Puntoni, 2018; Longoni, Bonezzi, & Morewedge, 2019; Mende, Scott, van Doorn, Grewal, & Shanks, 2019) and situations where consumers do not prefer humans to algorithms (e.g., Castelo, Bos, & Lehmann, 2019; Logg, Minson, & Moore, 2019) This highlights the need for researchers to investigate the triggers of consumer preference for human versus robotic labor. We compare whether consumer preferences for human versus robotic labor vary across consumption contexts with higher (e.g., when expressing something about oneself is important) versus lower symbolic value (e.g., when the instrumentality of product attributes is important; Green & Blair, 1995)
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