Review of employee-focused studies on task delegation to service robots

Service robots are increasingly delegated work tasks in various professional settings, creating new opportunities and challenges. While organizations deploy embodied service robots to streamline their operations and efficiency, employees working with these technologies also assess how service robots shape their sense of value and work roles. This literature review analyzes 42 employee-focused empirical studies, both quantitative and qualitative, that investigate employees’ experiences with task delegation to service robots. It systematically identifies the relationships between independent and dependent variables. It categorizes them based on independent variables related to task delegation to service robots, as well as employee, service robot, and contextual factors. It illustrates which relationships enable or hinder work with service robots. This analysis highlights contradictions in current knowledge and, in response, offers future research directions on employee workloads, employees’ responses to robot intelligence, and broadening the scope and diversity of studies.