Tag Archives: robotics

Myunghwan Lee’s PhD Proposal: Three Essays on AI Strategies and Innovation

Myunghwan Lee (2023) “Three Essays on AI Strategies and Innovation”, Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal, University of British Columbia. https://sites.google.com/view/myunghwanlee/home

Supervisor: Gene Moo Lee

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, along with the explosive growth of digitized data, are transforming many industries and our society. While both academia and industry consider AI closely intertwined with innovation, we still have limited knowledge of the business and economic values of AI on innovation. This three-essay dissertation seeks to address this gap (i) by proposing a novel firm-level measure to identify strategically innovative firms; (ii) by examining how firm-level AI capabilities affect knowledge innovation; and (iii) by investigating the impact of robotics, embodied AI with a physical presence, on operational innovation.

In the first essay, we propose a novel firm-level measure, Strategic Competitive Positioning (SCP), to identify distinctive strategic positioning (i.e., first-movers, second-movers) and competition relationships. Drawing on network theory, we develop a structural hole-based, dynamic, and firm-specific SCP measure. Notably, this SCP measure is constructed using unsupervised machine-learning and network analytics approaches with minimal human intervention. Using a large dataset of 10-K annual reports from 13,476 public firms in the U.S., we demonstrate the value of the proposed measure by examining the impact of SCP on subsequent IPO performance.

In the second essay, we study the impact of firm-level AI capabilities on exploratory innovation to determine how AI’s value-creation process can facilitate knowledge innovation. Drawing on March and Simon (1958), we theorize how AI capabilities can help firms overcome bounded rationality and pursue exploratory innovation. We compiled a unique dataset consisting of 54,649 AI conference publications, 3 million patent filings, and 1.9 million inter-firm transactions to test the hypotheses. The findings show that a firm’s AI capabilities have a positive impact on exploratory innovation, and interestingly that conventional exploratory innovation-seeking approaches (e.g., traditional data management capabilities and inter-firm technology collaborations) negatively moderate the positive impact of AI capabilities on exploratory innovation.

The impact of AI technologies can be beyond knowledge innovation. Embodied AI technologies, specifically robotics, are driving operational innovation in manufacturing and service industries. While industrial robots designed for pre-defined tasks in controlled environments are extensively studied, little is known about the impact of AI-based service robots designed for customer-facing dynamic environments. In the third essay, we seek to examine how service robots can affect operational efficiency and service quality using the case of the hospitality industry. The preliminary results from a difference-in-differences model using a dataset of 4,610 restaurants in Singapore demonstrate that service robot adoption increases customer satisfaction, specifically through perceived service quality. To validate the initial result and further explore underlying mechanisms, we plan to collect additional datasets from different geographic areas and industries.

 

Papers on Automation and Robotics

Last update: Aug 23, 2022

In this post, I am gathering robotics-related papers in information systems and related disciplines. This is by no means an exhaustive list. I will keep updating this list.

  1. Park, Jiyong, Jongho Kim (2022) A Data-Driven Exploration of the Race between Human Labor and Machines in the 21st Century, Communications of ACM 65(5):79-87.
  2. Koch, Michael, Manuylov Ilya, Marcel Smolka (2021) Robots and Firms, The Economic Journal 131(638):2553-2584.
  3. Ge, Ruyi, Zhiqiang (Eric) Zheng, Xuan Tian, Li Liao (2021) Human–Robot Interaction: When Investors Adjust the Usage of Robo-Advisors in Peer-to-Peer Lending. Information Systems Research 32(3):774-785.
  4. Jain, Hemant, Balaji Padmanabhan, Paul A. Pavlou, T. S. Raghu (2021) Editorial for the Special Section on Humans, Algorithms, and Augmented Intelligence: The Future of Work, Organizations, and Society. Information Systems Research 32(3):675-687.
  5. Berente, Nicholas, Gu, Bin, Recker, Jan, Santhanam, Radhika. (2021) Special Issue Editor’s Comments: Managing Artificial Intelligence. MIS Quarterly (45: 3) pp. 1433-1450.
  6. Dixon, Jay, Bryan Hong, Lynn Wu (2021) The Robot Revolution: Managerial and Employment Consequences for Firms. Management Science 67(9):5586-5605.
  7. Schanke, Scott, Gordon Burtch, Gautam Ray (2021) Estimating the Impact of “Humanizing” Customer Service Chatbots. Information Systems Research 32(3):736-751.
  8. Park, H., Jiang, S., Lee, O. D., Chang, Y. (2021) Exploring the Attractiveness of Service Robots in the Hospitality Industry: Analysis of Online Reviews. Information Systems Frontier
  9. Graetz, G., Michaels, G. 2018. Robots at work. Review of Economics and Statistics (100:5), pp. 753-768.
  10. Luo, Xueming, Siliang Tong, Zheng Fang, Zhe Qu (2019) Frontiers: Machines vs. Humans: The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Disclosure on Customer Purchases. Marketing Science 38(6):937-947.

 

AI Robot Adoption in the Service Industry (KOSEN Report 2020)

Gene Moo Lee (2020) “AI Robot Adoption in the Service Industry”. KOSEN Report  DOI: https://doi.org/10.22800/kisti.kosenexpert.2020.588

  • This is an industry report on AI robot adoption in the service industry.

Abstract

디지털 전환(Digital Transformation) 시장은 2020년 기준 3,550억 달러의 가치가 있으며, 2027년까지의 연간 성장률은 22.5%에 이를 것으로 예상되고 있다.  스마트폰의 보급과 무선인터넷의 확산은 디지털생태계가 구축될 수 있는 환경을 조성하였으며, 이용자들의 지속적인 디지털콘텐츠 활용으로 인한 데이터의 폭발적인 증가는 방대한 양의 데이터를 효율적으로 처리할 수 있는 빅데이터 처리 기술이 발달할 수 있는 밑거름이 되었다. 뿐만 아니라 사물인터넷(IoT), Quantum 컴퓨팅, 인공지능 기술의 발달은 기존의 오프라인 시장이 디지털 시장으로 전환할 수 있는 촉매제 역할을 하여 디지털 시장이 성장할 수 있는 원동력이 되었다. 실제로 다양한 산업 영역에서 디지털 시장 내에서 새로운 사업 기회를 포착하고자 하는 시도가 많이 이루어지고 있으며, 이를 바탕으로 오프라인에서 벗어나 온라인 디지털 시장에서 다양한 가치 창출을 가능하게 하였다. 전통산업의 디지털 전환이 가속화되고 있음은 다음과 같은 사례를 통해 파악할 수 있다. 자동차산업에서는 자율주행 서비스를 통해 고객들의 주행 데이터를 디지털화하여 무인 자동차 시대를 위한 준비를 하고 있으며, 의료산업에서는 원격진료를 통해 물리적 한계를 뛰어넘는 의료서비스라는 가치를 창조하고 있고, 제조산업에서는 생산시스템 자동화를 통해 생산 효율성을 높이고 품질을 높이는 활동을 하고 있다.

Robots Serve Humans: Does AI Robot Adoption Enhance Operational Efficiency and Customer Experience?

Lee, Myunghwan, Gene Moo Lee, Donghyuk Shin, Sang-Pil Han (2022) “Robots Serve Humans? Understanding the Economic and Societal Impacts of AI Robots in the Service Industry”, Working Paper.

  • Presented at WITS (2020), KrAIS (2020), UBC (2021), DS (2022)
  • Research assistants: Raymond Situ, Gallant Tang

Service providers, such as restaurants, have been adopting various robotics technologies to improve operational efficiency and increase customer satisfaction. AI Robotics technologies bring new restaurant experiences to customers by taking orders, cooking, and serving. While the impact of industrial robots has been well documented in the literature, little is known about the impact of customer-facing service robot adoption. To fill this gap, this work-in-progress study aims to analyze the impact of service robot adoption on restaurant service quality using 4,610 restaurants and their online customer reviews. We analyzed the treated effect of robot adoption using a difference-in-differences approach with propensity score and exact matching. Estimation results show that restaurant robot adoption has a positive impact on customer satisfaction, specifically on perceived service quality. This study provides both academic and practical implications on emerging AI robotics techniques.