Food delivery robots as a technological innovation: exploring consumer adoption through UTAUT and coolness

Food delivery robots (FDRs; also called autonomous food delivery vehicles) represent a technological innovation that employs autonomous robots or vehicles to perform food delivery tasks traditionally handled by human delivery workers in the mobile food-ordering domain. The current research investigates the determinants influencing consumers’ intentions to adopt FDRs. We propose a model based on UTAUT and coolness constructs. The model was empirically scrutinised through an analysis of questionnaire data gathered from 350 Korean participants. The outcomes show that the model has strong explanatory power regarding the intention to adopt FDRs. Also, performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, attractiveness, and subcultural appeal induce greater intention. In addition, originality is found to positively affect subcultural appeal. However, effort expectancy and originality were not found to have a remarkable influence on intention. Furthermore, we examined the moderating roles of age and gender in the research model and discovered that only age notably moderated the association between subcultural appeal and adoption intention. Based on these outcomes, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.