---
title: "Service robots research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “service robots” appeared in 278 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in tourism and hospitality (156), management (50) and marketing (36)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/service-robots
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/service-robots.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “service robots” appeared in 278 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in tourism and hospitality (156), management (50) and marketing (36). (as of 2026-11-04)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-04T00:03:46+09:00
window: 2026-10-06 to 2026-11-04
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “service robots”

Research on “service robots” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “service robots” appeared in 278 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in tourism and hospitality (156), management (50) and marketing (36).
- 48 of them were published in 2025, against 0 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Hanyang University (10), Jinan University (10) and Sun Yat-sen University (10).
- The journals publishing most of them were International Journal of Hospitality Management (66), Journal of Business Research (18) and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services (18).
- The most-cited of them is “Understanding anthropomorphism in service provision: a meta-analysis of physical robots, chatbots, and other AI” (Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2021), with 1,196 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 4 | 12 | 8 | 29 | 15 | 34 | 29 | 25 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 15 | 10 | 7 | 9 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 0 | 1 | 6 | 17 | 19 | 49 | 38 | 51 | 48 | 49 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 66 |
| 2 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 18 |
| 3 | [Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-retailing-and-consumer-services.md) | 18 |
| 4 | [Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-hospitality-and-tourism-management.md) | 16 |
| 5 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 14 |
| 6 | [Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/tourism-management.md) | 10 |
| 7 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 5 |
| 8 | [Tourism Management Perspectives](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/tourism-management-perspectives.md) | 5 |
| 9 | [Information Technology & Tourism](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-technology-tourism.md) | 4 |
| 10 | [Information Systems Frontiers](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-systems-frontiers.md) | 3 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Hanyang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hanyang-university.md) | 10 |
| 2 | [Jinan University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/jinan-university.md) | 10 |
| 3 | [Sun Yat-sen University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sun-yat-sen-university.md) | 10 |
| 4 | [City University of Macau](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/city-university-of-macau.md) | 7 |
| 5 | [Huazhong University of Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/huazhong-university-of-science-and-technology.md) | 7 |
| 6 | [Macau University of Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/macau-university-of-science-and-technology.md) | 7 |
| 7 | [Michigan State University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/michigan-state-university.md) | 7 |
| 8 | [University of Surrey](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-surrey.md) | 6 |
| 9 | Foshan University | 5 |
| 10 | [Griffith University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/griffith-university.md) | 5 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 84 |
| 2 | United States | 53 |
| 3 | South Korea | 24 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 23 |
| 5 | Macao | 16 |
| 6 | Australia | 13 |
| 7 | Hong Kong | 13 |
| 8 | Canada | 11 |
| 9 | India | 9 |
| 10 | Spain | 8 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | human-robot interaction | 65 |
| 2 | [hospitality industry](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/hospitality-industry.md) | 27 |
| 3 | [customer satisfaction](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/customer-satisfaction.md) | 20 |
| 4 | anthropomorphism | 18 |
| 5 | humanoid robots | 13 |
| 6 | service failure | 13 |
| 7 | consumer acceptance | 11 |
| 8 | [hospitality employees](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/hospitality-employees.md) | 10 |
| 9 | hospitality services | 10 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,196 | 17.1 | [Understanding anthropomorphism in service provision: a meta-analysis of physical robots, chatbots, and other AI](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00762-y) | [Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-the-academy-of-marketing-science.md) | 2021-01-06 | Markus Blut, Cheng Wang, Nancy V. Wünderlich et al. |
| 2 | 1,009 | 10.8 | [Developing and validating a service robot integration willingness scale](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2019.01.005) | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 2019-01-24 | Lu Lu, Ruiying Cai, Doğan Gürsoy |
| 3 | 612 | 7.4 | [Leveraging human-robot interaction in hospitality services: Incorporating the role of perceived value, empathy, and information sharing into visitors’ intentions to use social robots](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2019.104042) | [Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/tourism-management.md) | 2019-11-29 | Ronan de Kervenoael, Rajibul Hasan, Alexandre Schwob et al. |
| 4 | 571 | 8.0 | [Preference for robot service or human service in hotels? Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102795) | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 2020-12-04 | Seongseop Kim, Jungkeun Kim, Frank Badu‐Baiden et al. |
| 5 | 352 | 7.0 | [Artificial intelligence in tourism and hospitality: Bibliometric analysis and research agenda](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2022.103317) | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 2022-08-24 | Mouna Knani, Saïd Echchakoui, Riadh Ladhari |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “service robots”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/service-robots

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-service-robots,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “service robots”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/service-robots}},
  urldate = {2026-11-04},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).