This study examined the effect of resistance barriers on alternative attractiveness of service robots and intention to use to explain the effect of innovation resistance against such robots on customer behavior. An online survey was conducted with South Korean customers who had used hotel rooms in the past year. This study tested its hypotheses with partial least squares–structural equation modeling. The results indicate that usage barriers related to customers’ familiarity with use and tradition as well as image barriers caused by psychological instability and decreased alternative attractiveness. However, the value and risk barriers based on technological level had no significant effect on alternative attractiveness. The results show that alternative attractiveness increases intention to use; however, alternative attractiveness affected by resistance barriers decreases intention to use. This study broadens the research scope by applying the innovation resistance theory to prior service robot literature with pro-innovation bias. Hospitality managers can refer to these results to design service environments that can lower the resistance barrier against using service robots.

With the increasing adoption of frontline service robots (FLSRs) in hospitality workplaces, collaboration between frontline employees (FLEs) and FLSRs has become a necessity. The existing literature focuses on the customer perspective of FLSRs; however, this study explains the mechanisms through which employees’ willingness to collaborate with FLSRs are built. By incorporating robot service capability and perceived risk as external variables into a technology acceptance model, this study investigated the mechanisms of FLEs’ willingness to collaborate with FLSRs. The results showed that the service capability of FLSRs plays a significant role in increasing FLEs’ willingness to collaborate, whereas perceived risk decreases their willingness to collaborate. These results indicate that the level of service capability of FLSRs and the management of perceived risk are important in shaping FLEs’ positive attitudes toward collaborating with FLSRs. Therefore, this study extends the literature by investigating how FLEs and FLSRs relate to each other from a collaboration perspective.