While the majority of media headlines are condemning the widespread deployment of robots within firms, our results advocate the numerous incentives of robotization. Whether robotization will be good or bad in the long run will depend crucially on the response of private firms and public policies.

There are real signs that robotization is facilitating firms to move up the value chain, through accelerated production and improved performance. Robots are capable of producing increased high-quality products. They are accurate, can produce more in a small span of time, and are capable of undertaking repetitive applications efficiently compared to humans. The innovations associated with robots add to the incentives drawn from this form of technology. Creativity, speed, advancement, progressive are some incentives that help firms to increase communication with other firms and open the gateways for further development and collaboration with new clients. Surging online commerce platforms and tight labor markets pose difficulty in filling in warehouse jobs, and robots provide the best option in such circumstances. The above arguments fall in sync with the statement of Robotic firms stated below.

“Robotics firms …help people work faster and boost productivity during busy times, such as the holidays, when extra labor is harder to find. …not meant to replace human labor, greater throughput …same size workforce.” (Smith, The Wall Street Journal, 2017)

The technological innovation in the form of robots is remarkably being introduced in various spheres of human lives leading to transforming impact. The introduction of the first Robocop in Dubai poses an excellent example of technological advancement embracement. Dubai plans to create a human-free police station by 2020, with the initial crime reports and fine processings being carried out by robots. Robots parking cars, delivering grocery at the doorstep, constructing roads, home security, are some spheres that are facilitating comfortable and hassle-free day to day lives.

Firms consider that deployment of robots in low-skilled sectors would enable the employees to concentrate better on the jobs that require creativity and high-skilled activities. The accelerated rate of deployment of robots in business and increasing job insecurity motivates the existing employees and the future workforce to enhance their skills and create high-skilled jobs. The technological intervention is a medium to enhance efficiency. The reduced dependence on humans in labor-intensive tasks saves time and motivates the employees to concentrate on other precise and core specialized tasks. Hence, this motivates workers and allows them to invest in more skilled tasks adding to value creation and innovativeness. As future work requirement will be more concentrated on highly specialized streams such as digital know-how, creativity, management capability, complex problem solving and entrepreneurship, the continued success of firms will be dependent on the correct anticipation of future skills requirements.

“While automation technology has contributed to the loss of 800,000 low-skilled jobs in the last 15 years…replace them with 3.5 million higher-skilled ones …not destroy it” (Deloitte, 2015).

Increased customer satisfaction and better shopping experience are also a key motivation behind the adoption of robots. Introduction and acceptance of robots in companies are often competition driven. The extremely competitive market environment forces firms to adopt robots, or else they will become obsolete. Firms adopt automation to satisfy the needs of the customers and make their shopping experience hassle-free. Such steps allow firms to gain customer trust and loyalty. In recent times, customers are more interested in encountering new shopping experiences and are focussed on businesses that satisfy their needs and offer them a satisfying shopping experience. The statement from the CEO of Yum brand falls by above arguments

“We take into account all of our customers’ needs for everything from food safety to maximum uptime…robots can work, say, standing in front of a fryer or chopping onions…of high turnover, especially for quick service restaurants” (Kolodny, 2017).

The random changing pace of the entertainment industry necessitates the adoption of new ideas and innovation to rule the market and robots claim a prominent place in facilitating the spontaneity and newness in the industry. The movie industry, live band performance, dance performance, and video games are a few areas that have exploited robots to create zeal and enthusiasm among the spectators. The inclusion of dancing drones during live performances as stage props is quickly gaining recognition within the entertainment industry. The Roboart competition, 2016 witnessed several mechanical painting devices, CloudPainter being one of them that utilizes AI and deep learning systems to make a creative decision. The exceptional inclusion of robot cameras and robot arms to pull off remarkable shots in the Hollywood movie ‘Gravity’ set new standards for movie making. Musical or band robots are making a mark in the world of music through the introduction of metallic machines that are designed to play real musical instruments.

Modern healthcare systems have been advancing and innovating and are capable of treating more diseases with the advent of new technologies. However, quality, cost, and access remain concerns causing our current health systems to be unsustainable. The introduction of robots is creating a digital health revolution and transforming impact on health systems worldwide. Robots are transforming medicine by relieving the medical personnel from carrying out routine tasks. Personal health care robots take over the job of domestic nurses by reminding the elderly patients about their medication, counseling the patients about chronic illness, and helping track patient progress. Robots are widely being utilized to perform minimally invasive surgeries that require additional precision. Sanitation and cleaning are other areas realizing efficient deployment of robots. Apart from conventional medicines robots are finding application in other streams such as psychology. Robotherapy for children with autism help to develop and cultivate cognitive skill and emotional, social behavior. The New Robotherapy for children diagnosed with autism could help reduce the patient supervision done by therapists.

“Admittedly, …benefit behavioral therapy for children with ASD – diminishing the therapist workload …RET provides mixed effectiveness for primary tasks…Standard Human Treatment (SHT). (Robotics Magazine, 2017).

As human–robot interaction systems are being developed increasingly, their impact on users and society has gained profound significance and consideration. The increasing proximity between humans and robots as co-workers and colleagues arise many ethical and legal issues. The over-reliance of humans on robots for their pettiest jobs to sharing the work environment with an intelligent machine can lead to behavioral anomalies. Challenges that need attention include unintended consequences of the robot allowable tasks and the emergence of unintended situations. For example, what should be the robot's responsibility if the user needs emergency attention? Furthermore, the issue of the emotional affinity of users with human-looking robots may lead to over trust and attachment, leading to problems when they are not around.

Moreover, the over-reliance on robots can lead to ineffectiveness and inefficiency. The expanding complexities and usefulness of systems and their increased possibilities to enter human lives are introducing the studies on ethical challenges into human–robot interaction (HRI). The attitude of users toward robots and vice versa is of immense attention. The roboticists are warned of the emerging ethical challenges where robots might take over humans leading to dehumanizing impact.

“More recently there… from the …how to create ethical robots, to avoid them taking over the world” (Glaser, The Guardian, 2017).

In this study, we analyze the impact of robotization through various theoretical lenses including behavioral, economic, and operations management perspectives. From the behavioral perspective, we focus on the interplay between robots and humans and possible theoretical lenses grounded in sociology literature that can extend our understanding of this emerging phenomenon. The future workforce demands the collaborative efforts of humans and robots for the best outcomes. The camaraderie between robots and humans at the workplace offers several behavioral anomalies where humans might get depressed or over-reliant in artificial surroundings leading to ineffectiveness.

On the other hand, humans might treat robots as peers and work to increase the emotional quotient of machines. This process offers challenges when robots could absorb both positive and negative emotions and in adverse situations can result in a disaster and have a dehumanizing impact. Alternatively, humans through their treatment of robots as a mechanical creature could make the machines more mechanistic than human and perhaps defeat the objectives underlying intelligent machines. The theoretical lens through which the response of consumers in the innovative artificial behavior (here robots) is expressed, can be explained by role theory. Role theory (Hindin & Micelle, 2007) posits that individuals can behave according to socially defined position (role congruence) or against this position (role conflict) (Stock & Merkle, 2018). Role theory governs various assumptions such as individuals form expectations about the roles that they and others will play. Individuals subtly encourage others to act within certain role expectations. We expect that the introduction of robots in a social environment and the daily lives of individuals may lead individuals to form expectation from robots to deliver services as per their desires and requirements. We assume that if such expectations are not fulfilled, individuals may refuse to accept such innovations and indulgence in their daily lives. In positive expectations, individuals may encourage the deployment of robots and would also provide suggestions and innovative ideas to upgrade robot services to provide enhanced customer support and aid. The derived themes such as consumer satisfaction, entertainment, human-robot interaction are well suited to the above theory. We propose that if the deployment of robots in various sectors of human services such as healthcare can provide individuals with advanced healthcare at a reduced cost, it paves the way for the acceptance of robots. Satisfied consumers can propose the introduction of the new technological advancement (here robots) in various other domains of human lives and motivate others to introduce them into their lives and reap benefits. The words such as autism, elderly, therapist under the theme healthcare add value to the robot introduction in the healthcare sector. Elderly care and treatment of autistic children and other patients with robotic therapists would reduce the burden of the hospital workforce. Home robots can effectively help the elderly with their daily chores and simultaneously take their care. The human-robot interaction initiated during such a process may lead to another aspect of robot deployment such as overdependence on technology. Issues such as robot moral and ethics are immediate problems, as depicted by the words such as over-reliance, moral and attitude under the theme human-robot interaction.

From an economic perspective, the same robots, replacing humans in essential sectors, keep the employees devoid of social benefits and pensions creating a social disruption. Economically, deployment of robots in the initial stages of process automation would be a disadvantage as compared to the deployment in the later stages, as it creates a loss. Likewise, the automation that leads to increased production does not guarantee the accelerated demand as compared to production. Robot deployment in the firms can create new jobs and add value to the firms as shown in the themes Value addition/Creativity and Incentives. However, studies do not agree with the promised productivity boost by automation firms (Lindeberg, 2018). The measured productivity growth has slowed down significantly, over the past decade. This deceleration is massive, cutting productivity growth by half or more in the decade preceding the slowdown. (Brynjolfsson, Rock, & Syverson, 2017). While robots and AI researchers advocate their significant role in productivity boost, job creation, wage increment and accelerated performance, such promises are not evident in the immediate future. We can explain such discrepancy through modern productivity paradox, which advocates that the impressive capabilities of AI are yet to diffused widely.

Moreover, like any other general purpose technology, the full impact of AI will not be realized without the development and implementation of complementary innovations (Brynjolfsson et al., 2017). We believe that the potentials displayed by robots in this study are consistent with this theory and it will take time before we can reap the benefits of technological advancements. Organizational changes, development, and the requirement for a skilled workforce are few tangible investments necessary for the complete realization of robotization benefits.

From the operations management perspective, the study reflects the fact that emulation of humans is more feasible when the work environment is unidirectional and the process involved is straightforward, i.e., the performance can be quantified and evaluated effortlessly. The themes of sustainable agriculture and productivity are in line with lean management concept of operations management, as they tend toward resource efficiency, conservation, and minimization of water. Lean is considered to be an indispensable factor for the success of manufacturing endeavors (Selko, 2012; Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1990). The underlying principle of minimization of waste for maximization of productivity has gained influence since been introduced into the lean construct (Ohno, 1988). The words under the theme of ‘Productivity’ such as boost, growth, efficiency, precision depict the positive impact of robotization on firms’ performance. Sustainability is a growing concern among researchers and robots effectively address this issue to some extent as depicted by words like clean, environment, pollution, water. Robots can reduce pollution, increase agricultural productivity and simultaneously conserve natural resources. Robot deployment indicates increased productivity with less effort and more precisions within the reduced time frame. However, this could make the assembly line operations more complicated as there could be inventory accumulation at different stages due to partial automation or could make the downstream supply chain more efficient compared to the upstream supply chain, thus leading to challenges regarding resource efficiency for the firms.

To examine robotization, the study offers theoretical suggestions that are grounded in empirical evidence observed in various archived data sources. These theoretical directions would help extend our understanding of this emerging phenomenon.

The above points noticeably signify the positive impact of robotization on firm productivity and performance. The above arguments address the research question. Firms are leveraging the concept of robotization through increased performance, efficiency and profit. Innovation, creativity, and precision are some other significant factors that advocate for the deployment of robots in firms. Most firms introduce automation because they realize the fact that robots are the upcoming trends that are undeniable. So, firms do not want to miss the chance to sustain the market.

The findings suggest a positive impact of robotization on a firm's external environment, but its impact on the internal environment remains unaddressed (e.g., employees, the degree of dynamism within the organization) to some extent. The interaction of human and robots pose many ethical and behavioral challenges as discussed in the result section. In respect of the diversity and the complexity of robots, a technology-based framework of ethical values and principles can help to formulate regulations at every single level of conception, fabrication, and utilization of robots. The impact of robotization on the internal environment of the firms is a bit complex and depend on the policies that govern the firms. The study reveals that although robot deployment assures a positive impact on the firms, it does create insecurity in the form of low skilled job loss and financial insecurity in the society. Through the economic perspective lens, robot deployment leads to accelerated supply through production at low cost but does not align with the demand in the market. An economy like this could evolve in some ways. The possible outcome could be the emergence of an economy that pays more to an exceptionally talented few people while paying low wages to many others.

The study reveals that technology and automation specifically robotization in firms have a profound effect on the workforce. Low skilled, routine jobs are being replaced by highly specialized jobs that involve more creativity, dexterity, dynamism, and digital know-how. High-skilled jobs are being created, and the redundant routine jobs are being destroyed with the advent of technology. Automation in the agricultural sector is focused on sustainability and addressing environmental concerns. The adoption of robots points toward productivity and positivity, but it may also present a few challenges in the future such as inequality and job insecurity. This study suggests implications for policymakers and educators to invest in the creation of a highly skilled workforce to combat the challenges of job insecurity and inequality. The chances of mitigating the risks and maximizing the profits from the technological advancement depend upon the correct anticipation of future skill requirement and the coordination of policies with education strategies.

Moreover, technological intervention raises privacy concerns, which needs to be taken into account by the policymakers. There are several endogenous threats related to robots and AI where robots might take over human intelligence and claim their superiority and coexistence, which have not been displayed in our investigation. However, the study limits in data sample and our investigation partially shed light on such threats such as over-reliance, moral and ethics of robots. The future research may draw upon the robust examination of the adverse impact of robotization on humanity.