The role of service robots’ empathy in shaping consumers’ privacy concerns – a privacy calculus perspective

Purpose Privacy concerns represent a critical barrier to consumers’ acceptance of service robots. Existing literature has extensively examined the influence of service robots’ external characteristics and technical functionalities on consumers’ privacy concerns, yet the role of empathy remains underexplored. Drawing on privacy calculus theory (PCT), this study aims to explore how service robots’ empathy affects consumers’ privacy concerns, examining the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions. Design/methodology/approach To empirically validate the model, four scenario-based experiments were conducted in diverse service contexts involving 670 participants. Study 1 established the direct impact of service robots’ empathy on consumers’ privacy concerns. Studies 2 and 3 examined perceived privacy risk as a mediating variable. Study 4 examined the moderating effect of information sensitivity. Findings High-empathy service robots significantly reduce consumers’ privacy concerns by lowering their perceived privacy risk. This mitigating effect, however, is moderated by information sensitivity: while empathy effectively alleviates privacy concerns in low information sensitivity contexts, its impact is significantly weakened when consumers are confronted with highly sensitive information. Originality/value This study reveals empathy as a previously overlooked antecedent of privacy concerns in human-robot interaction, extends the affective dimension of PCT by incorporating empathy into risk assessment and reveals the boundary condition of information sensitivity. These findings present managerial insights for enterprises deploying service robots in contexts with varying information sensitivity.