PhD ceremony Jana Holthöwer

On Thursday the 10th of October Jana Holthöwer will defend her PhD Thesis titled 'Robots to the rescue? Shaping service experiences in healthcare and beyond'.

Holthöwer's thesis focuses on how consumers can be stimulated to experience greater acceptance, satisfaction, and compliance with service robots, contributing significantly to the successful integration of robots into service frontlines. She shows that consumers are more accepting of service robots in situations where they fear social judgment. Holthöwer also investigates the use of robots in transformative services where the intended improvement of consumer well-being depends heavily on the collaborative behavior of consumers. Here, she shows that robot feedback, both positive and negative, is less impactful for consumer self-concept and consumer satisfaction with the service provider, than human feedback. She additionally finds that compliance with a service robot‘s health-related advice can be increased if the robot acts semi-autonomously and is validated by a human coworker.

Holthöwer’s thesis comprehensively explores various factors that enhance interactions with service robots, adding to the emerging body of literature essential for unlocking the considerable potential of service robots within organizational settings.