ACCEPTANCE OF HUMAN-ROBOT COLLABORATION: A COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE-NORMATIVE APPROACH
ACCEPTANCE OF HUMAN-ROBOT COLLABORATION: A COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE-NORMATIVE APPROACH

Summary/Abstract: Industry 5.0 represents a new paradigm in industrial organisation, evolving from Industry 4.0 toward human-centric and collaborative production environments. This study examines the acceptance of human–robot collaboration (HRC) technologies, such as collaborative robots (cobots), by analysing both acceptance and resistance pathways within the cognitive–affective–normative (CAN) technology acceptance framework. The model incorporates cognitive factors (performance expectancy and effort expectancy), affective factors (positive emotions, negative emotions, and anxiety), and normative influences (social influence). Data were collected from 126 industrial workers and analysed using correlational techniques and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The results reveal positive correlations between performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and positive emotions with favourable attitudes toward HRC. In contrast, negative emotions and anxiety are negatively associated with favourable judgements. The configurational analysis highlights multiple, asymmetric pathways leading to both acceptance and rejection. Performance expectancy emerges as the most recurrent condition in configurations explaining acceptance, whereas the absence of performance expectancy and the presence of negative emotions frequently characterise rejection pathways. These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how cognitive, affective, and normative factors interact in shaping workers’ attitudes toward collaborative robotic environments in the context of Industry 5.0.

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