**5. General Discussion**

#### *5.1. Theoretical Implications*

These findings of this paper have three theoretical contributions. First, most previous research suggested that people have a negative attitude toward service robots in the general service context [19–23]. In addition, prior research lacks the discussion of the role of perceived risk during the COVID-19 pandemic from a quantitative aspect [4–8]. This study focuses on the effect of the perceived risk of COVID-19 on customer–robot engagement in a public health emergency, which expands the perspective of research on service robots. Prior research on customer engagement has mostly discussed customer engagement with brand, product, and community [38,40,42,44,45]. In addition, there is some research arguing that anthropomorphism increases the intention of the customer to be close to other objects, including service robots [84,85]. The anthropomorphism of service robots provides another choice for social activities when there is a higher level of the perceived risk of COVID-19. This work discusses the impact of the perceived risk of a public health emergency on customer–robot engagement, which is rapidly developing and popular among hospitality industries. We find that the perceived risk in the COVID-19 pandemic can increase customer–robot engagement significantly, which extends the research on the antecedents of customer engagement. And the results of this study enrich the research of anthropomorphism and service robots as it replaces some human staff in hotels and restaurants.

Second, we are the first to utilize protection motivation theory [26,50] to explain how customers' perceived risk of the COVID-19 pandemic influences customer–robot engagement. Our results showed that the perceived risk of COVID-19 positively influences customer–robot engagement through the influence of social distancing, which helps deepen understanding of customer–robot engagement in a public health emergency. In line with protection motivation theory [26,50], this work demonstrated that social distancing is a critical form of coping strategy when faced with the risk of COVID-19. This research emphasized the importance of social distancing in coping with COVID-19 [12].

Third, we discussed the moderators of the indirect effect of COVID-19 on customer– robot engagement. In particular, the mediating effect of social distancing on the relationship between perceived risk of COVID-19 and customer–robot engagement is stronger for riskaverse (vs. risk-seeking) customers. This work enriches the knowledge of coping strategies for COVID-19, and it offers a new context to improve and innovate robot services.
