Artificial intelligence (AI) transforms the workplace by enhancing routine task efficiency and fostering a culture of innovation, especially within the retail sector, where staying ahead requires constant innovation. More than just automating processes, AI aids employee creativity by providing insights that allow staff to focus on more creative tasks. Despite these advancements, there remains a gap in research concerning the impact of AI service quality on retail employees, marking a critical area for further investigation.
A collaborative study conducted by scholars from Florida Atlantic University and Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea, delved into how retail employees’ perceptions of AI service quality affect their innovation, job alignment, and overall job satisfaction. The research focused on system-centric attributes like reliability and transparency and interaction-centric qualities like responsiveness and empathy. Additionally, the study examined how AI adaptability—its ability to tailor its functions to user requirements—might play a moderating role in enhancing perceived service quality.
Published in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, the findings indicate that retail employees are more inclined to innovate when they perceive tangible benefits from AI interactions. Notably, when AI systems exhibit reliability and empathy, this encourages employees to innovate. The research underscores the significant role of AI in fostering service innovation, mainly how it aids management in making strategic decisions and scaling operations across the retail sector.
The study revealed that while reliability is crucial for supporting service innovation, transparency does not hold a significant sway over innovation. This is a surprising revelation, as responsiveness, traditionally viewed as critical for boosting customer engagement and addressing real-time issues, showed no significant impact on service innovation. On the other hand, empathy was found to have a robust positive influence on innovative service behaviours, suggesting that AI systems that can effectively recognize and respond to users’ emotional and psychological needs contribute to a more dynamic work environment.
Dr Sangbeak Ye, a co-author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Research Methodology at FAU, highlighted the role of empathy in AI. He noted that empathetic AI builds trust and deepens connections, motivating employees to engage in innovative behaviours by making them feel supported. In the retail context, empathetic AI improves job fit by aligning employees’ attributes with their roles, enhancing job satisfaction, decreasing turnover, and boosting employee participation. This alignment allows employees to customize tasks to match their skills and aspirations, making them feel more connected to their roles.
Interestingly, the study also found that AI adaptability tends to dilute the impact of system-related attributes like transparency and reliability on service innovation, pointing to intricate interactions between system and interaction-related factors.
Dr. Ye further emphasized the importance of managers fostering innovative work environments by improving AI service quality. He advocated for a focus on reliability to ensure AI’s dependable support in daily operations and enhancing empathy within AI systems to provide more personalized and emotionally engaging experiences. These efforts, he suggested, inspire employees to explore new ideas. Moreover, in environments driven by dynamic AI applications, attributes such as empathy become crucial in enhancing employee engagement and creativity. By strategically integrating AI to support job customization and innovation, organizations can increase job satisfaction and connect employees more deeply with their work, enhancing overall service quality.
For their analysis, the researchers gathered data from 290 retail employees across various sectors, including online retail and e-commerce, grocery and food retail, apparel and fashion retail, health and beauty retail, electronics and appliances retail, and finance retail. The participants included 62.8% management-level employees and 37.2% frontline workers, providing a broad perspective on the AI’s impact across different levels of retail operations.
More information: Sangbeak Ye et al, How AI enhances employee service innovation in retail: Social exchange theory perspectives and the impact of AI adaptability, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.104207
Journal information: Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services Provided by Florida Atlantic University