The Emergence of Service Robots at Restaurants: Integrating Trust, Perceived Risk, and Satisfaction
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is interesting and well elaborated, with good definitions of the most important constructs.
The Method section has to be elaborated further. See my specific comments.
On the other hand the question raises what this article has to do with sustainability, as this is the main topic of this journal.
Specific comments
Page 4: ‘These two crucial TAM constructs, PU and PEPU, (…)’must be ‘These two crucial TAM constructs, PU and PEOU, (…)’
Page 7: ‘Two robot pictures (Figure 1) (…)’. This must be figure 2.
Page 7: ‘In the pilot test, 50 college students and 100 university students completed the questionnaire.’ Why this specific population, and why this amount of respondents?
Page 7: ‘Items were then modified items that were difficult to understand.’ I understand the essence of this sentence, but it has to be written differently.
Page 8: ‘Figure 1. A proposed model.’ should be placed on page 7, just before the Methodology paragraph.
Page 8: ‘A total of 338 questionnaires were then used for data analysis (a response rate of 92.9%).’I would like to know more about the research conducted: which population? How is it measured that there is a response rate of 92.9%? What about the (construct) validity of the survey? What about the external validity of the results? Why an online survey (Biases: exclusion of people who are not online. People who are online can probably also be in favour with other technology, such as robotics)? Etc.
Page 10: references to Table 2, but no references to Table 1.
Author Response
<Reviewer 1’s comments and authors’ responses>
Reviewer 1’s general comments: The article is interesting and well elaborated, with good definitions of the most important constructs. The Method section has to be elaborated further. See my specific comments. On the other hand, the question raises what this article has to do with sustainability, as this is the main topic of this journal.
→ Author’s responses: We greatly appreciate that you took time out of your busy schedule to review this study. This paper will be significantly improved because of corrections based on your thoughtful comments. In order to incorporate your comments appropriately, we have done our best to address them. We especially agreed that the methodology section did not include enough information. We’ve revised the manuscript to provide more detained information in the methodology section (e.g., target population and validity issues). Also, we revised the manuscript according to the your specific comments. We believe that the topic covered in this current study fits one of the subjects of this journal. Robots play a major role in the sustainability of business by securing future growth engines that enhance work efficiency instead of humans. Our responses and new corrections have been colored in blue. Again, thank you so much for your attention to this work.
Reviewer’s specific comments
- Page 4: ‘These two crucial TAM constructs, PU and PEPU, (…)’must be ‘These two crucial TAM constructs, PU and PEOU, (…)’
Agreed. The typo has been corrected as follow: PEPU→ PEOU (Page 4)
- Page 7: ‘Two robot pictures (Figure 1) (…)’. This must be figure 2.
Agreed. The label for the second figure has been updated to “Figure 2.” (Page 8)
- Page 8: ‘Figure 1.A proposed model.’ should be placed on page 7, just before the Methodology paragraph.
Agreed. Figure 1 has been placed before the methodology paragraph. (Page 7)
- Page 7: ‘In the pilot test, 50 college students and 100 university students completed the questionnaire.’ Why this specific population, and why this amount of respondents?
The pilot test was conducted to check for potential problems with the questionnaire that might lead to biased answers. We assumed that 150 respondents were enough pretest sample size to check for such problems (especially, robots are new to respondents). We have rephrased the sentence as follows:
→ “Before the main data collection, a pilot test was conducted with 50 college students and 100 university students; the sample size of those who completed the questionnaire was regarded as sufficient to check reliability.” (Page 8)
- Page 7: ‘Items were then modified items that were difficult to understand.’ I understand the essence of this sentence, but it has to be written differently. Page 8: ‘A total of 338 questionnaires were then used for data analysis (a response rate of 92.9%).’I would like to know more about the research conducted: which population?
We agreed with author’s comments. We’ve updated the unclear methodology section in the manuscript with detailed information. In this current study, an online survey was conducted because of the COVID-19 pandemic, since people may be uncomfortable with a face-to-face survey. The detailed information about the respondents has been represented in Table 1.
→ “Data collection were conducted utilizing a web-based survey platform. The target population for this study consisted of restaurant consumers in Korea. Using a professional online market research company, the questionnaire was distributed to research company panels who had visited a restaurant recently. These panels received online points which can be exchanged for cash as rewards. The questionnaire was designed to be scenario-based in order to provide a more realistic environment for the robot restaurants. Before the main data collection, a pilot test was conducted with 50 college students and 100 university students; the sample size of those who completed the questionnaire was regarded as sufficient to check reliability.” (Page 8)
- Page 7: How is it measured that there is a response rate of 92.9%? What about the (construct) validity of the survey?
Construct validity was demonstrated in the “4.2. study reliability and validity” section (Page 9). A total of 364 panels submitted the questionnaires, 26 questionnaires were removed for missing data and biased responses. Thus, the sample size used in this study (n) was 338 participants with a response rate of 92.9%.
→ “A total of 364 panels submitted the questionnaires; from these, 26 questionnaires were removed for missing data and biased responses. Thus, the sample size used in this study (n) was 338 participants with a response rate of 92.9%.” (Page 8)
- What about the external validity of the results? Why an online survey (Biases: exclusion of people who are not online. People who are online can probably also be in favour with other technology, such as robotics)? Etc.
We agreed with author’s comments about external validity and biases issues. Regarding external validity issue, the survey design based on the artificial restaurant setting limited generalizability, so we discussed this limitation in the limitation section.
→ “Since the survey was conducted online, the possibility that the respondents feel favorably toward other technology is considered. Also, the artificial restaurant setting limited generalizability. It is recommended that future research should explore respondents who have experienced actual robot service at restaurants, avoiding the use of an online survey.” (Page 14)
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The proposed manuscript aims at finding the relationship between human factors (trust, perceived risk, and satisfaction) with perceived usefulness (PU) and perceiver ease of use (PEOU).
The authors have cites numerous previous works and have clearly stated both the objective and the limitations of their work.
To me, the paper is structurally ready for publication (although the previous work sections could be reduced) but need an extensive English check. Not only some phrases ar of difficult comprehension ("why people either [...] technology acceptance?" is an implicit question, or should be rephrased; "Items were the modified items that were difficult to understand" makes no sense, etc.) but there are multiple typos ("PEPU", "int he e-commerce") and grammatical errors ("are hesitate", "problems relate to", etc.).
Figure 1: arrow "H6" is misaligned
Author Response
<Reviewer 2’s comments and authors’ responses>
Reviewer 2’s general comments: The proposed manuscript aims at finding the relationship between human factors (trust, perceived risk, and satisfaction) with perceived usefulness (PU) and perceiver ease of use (PEOU). The authors have cites numerous previous works and have clearly stated both the objective and the limitations of their work. To me, the paper is structurally ready for publication (although the previous work sections could be reduced) but need an extensive English check. Not only some phrases are of difficult comprehension ("why people either [...] technology acceptance?" is an implicit question, or should be rephrased; "Items were the modified items that were difficult to understand" makes no sense, etc.) but there are multiple typos ("PEPU", "int he e-commerce") and grammatical errors ("are hesitate", "problems relate to", etc.).
Author’s responses:
→ We greatly appreciate that you took time out of your busy schedule to review this study. The manuscript has been revised drastically by English experts so that some phrases that are difficult to understand, typos, and grammatical errors have been corrected as shown below. Also, we revised the unclear methodology section drastically. The revised section is as follows:
→ Page 2: “In addition, during the last few decades, researchers have developed several models to explore why people decide to either accept or reject a technology and to determine what the antecedent variables are of such technology acceptance.”
→ Page 7: “Before the main data collection, a pilot test was conducted with 50 college students and 100 university students; the sample size of those who completed the questionnaire was regarded as sufficient to check reliability.”
Reviewer’s specific comments
→ Page 5: “int he e-commerce” has been revised to “trust in the e-commerce”
→ Page 4: “PEPU” has been revised to “PEOU”
→ Page 2: “are hesitate” has been revised “are hesitant”
→ Page 3: “problems relate to” has been revised to “technical problems related to the hardware”
→ Figure 1 has been updated
Figure 1. A proposed model.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is interesting and well elaborated, with good definitions of the most important constructs. According to me, it is almost ready for publishing.
Specific comments
Line 180: ‘These two crucial TAM constructs, PU and PEPU, (…)’must be ‘These two crucial TAM constructs, PU and PEOU, (…)’
Author Response
<Reviewer 1’s comments and authors’ response>
Reviewer 1’s comments: The article is interesting and well elaborated, with good definitions of the most important constructs. According to me, it is almost ready for publishing. Line 180: ‘These two crucial TAM constructs, PU and PEPU, (…)’must be ‘These two crucial TAM constructs, PU and PEOU, (…)’
→ Author’s response: We appreciate that you took time out of your busy schedule to review this study. The typo has been corrected as follow: PEPU→ PEOU (line 180)
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
