Agentic and communal roles in the autonomous mobility service ecosystem: how assemblage properties drive consumer crafting behavior

Purpose The autonomous mobility service ecosystem (AMSE) fundamentally reorganizes interactions between consumer, autonomous vehicles, platforms and infrastructure. However, the understanding of consumer crafting behavior, the creative actions consumers undertake to actively shape, modify and redefine their mobility experiences within new urban mobility solutions, remains limited. Employing assemblage theory, this study aims to uncover the mechanisms underlying consumer behavioral changes in the AMSE. Design/methodology/approach A sequential mixed-method design combining exploratory qualitative and confirmatory quantitative analyses was employed. Study 1 applied semantic network analysis to 4,500 Waymo user reviews to identify consumers' agentic and communal roles within the AMSE. Study 2 surveyed 338 actual autonomous taxi users to empirically examine how assemblage properties (competence and warmth) mediate the relationship between service quality and consumer responses (i.e. trust and crafting behavior) toward the AMSE. Findings Study 1 reveals that consumers' agentic and communal roles jointly shape the competence and warmth of the AMSE. Study 2 confirms that (1) perceived assemblage competence develops through both agentic and communal service quality (ß = 0.329, p < 0.001; ß = 0.458, p < 0.001, respectively), (2) perceived assemblage warmth emerges primarily through communal service quality (ß = 0.650, p < 0.001) but not agentic quality (ß = 0.096, p = 0.129) and (3) both assemblage properties mediate the service quality to trust and usage crafting behavior pathway (R2 = 0.324 for usage crafting). Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to empirically demonstrate how agentic and communal service qualities differentially activate assemblage properties in autonomous mobility service ecosystems, revealing asymmetric mediation effects (communal quality activates both competence and warmth; agentic quality influences only competence). We extend usage crafting theory from behavioral intentions to actual adaptive behaviors among real users, providing stakeholder-specific design guidelines for autonomous mobility adoption.