Bot with a Heart: Can AI-Bot Sensory Experience and Employee Sustainability Manufacture Happiness?

Abstract

Within the current VUCA technological environment, manufacturing industry in emerging countries faces serious challenges, such as disengagement of employees, increased stress levels, and high turnover rate. Even though artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being incorporated into work processes, little research has been conducted on AI and its impact on the emotional reactions of employees. Thus, this research fills this gap by using outside-in perspective to investigate the impact of AI-bot-sensory-experience and empathetic interactions, combined with employee sustainability (ES), on employee happiness, thus contributing to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (3,8,10). The research adopts a mixed-methods technique. Interpretive Structural Modeling and Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification method are programmed using Python to understand constructs influencedependence relationships and build a conceptual model. The quantitative approach involved a survey conducted among manufacturing companies. The data is analyzed through structural equation modeling in SmartPLS to determine the hypotheses. Based on the theory of constructed emotion, the findings show that ES trigger positive emotions, while AI-bot-sensory-experience and AI empathy are positively related to employees’ happiness.