How Does Employee Dependence on Intelligent Machines Influence Turnover Intention? A Serial Mediation via Workplace Objectification and Workplace Loneliness

While integrating intelligent machines enhances workplace efficiency, it paradoxically correlates with increased employee turnover. To explain this efficiency–turnover paradox, this study draws primarily on conservation of resources theory to investigate how employees’ dependence on intelligent machines triggers turnover intention. Using data from a two-wave longitudinal survey with a two-month lag among 241 manufacturing employees in China, we tested a serial mediation model. Results indicate that dependence on intelligent machines does not directly predict turnover intention. Instead, it exerts an indirect effect through a resource-depleting serial mechanism. By transferring human–machine interaction patterns to interpersonal relations, machine dependence triggers workplace objectification, which in turn exacerbates workplace loneliness. Faced with this severe relational and emotional depletion, employees develop turnover intention as a self-protective strategy. By integrating technological, socio-cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions, the findings demonstrate that digital reliance undermines employee retention primarily through a cascade of interpersonal objectification and emotional loneliness, underscoring the necessity of techno-humanistic management practices.