Designed to serve: social robots in value networks

Social robotics is radically changing the ways in which and with whom humans co-create value. For service providers, this creates a need to get a better understanding of how customers evaluate human-like machines in service interactions. This dissertation investigates robots assisting elderly people through conversations, reminders, and other social means. It shows that the elderly customers, in some way, perceive and evaluate robots as humans. This research also introduces a novel method to collect customer evaluations of “pains and gains” of robotized services. Finally, it demonstrates the importance of designing future robotic services focusing on the value social robots provide to customers and their social networks.