Purpose

While robots have increasingly threatened frontline employees’ (FLEs) future employment by taking over more mechanical and analytical intelligence tasks, they are still unable to “experience” and “feel” to occupy empathetic intelligence tasks that can be handled better by FLEs. This study, therefore, aims to empirically develop and validate a scale measuring the new so-called empathetic creativity as being creative in practicing and performing empathetically intelligent skills during service encounters.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopts a multistage design to develop the scale. Phase 1 combines a literature review with text mining from 3,737 service robots-related YouTube comments to generate 16 items capturing this new construct. Phase 2 assesses both face and content validity of those items, while Phase 3 recruits Prolific FLEs sample to evaluate construct validity. Phase 4 checks this construct’s nomological validity using PLS-SEM and Phase 5 experiments dedicated effort (vs natural talent) as an effective approach to foster FLEs’ perceived empathetic creativity.

Findings

The final scale is comprised of 13 refined items that capture three dimensions (social, interactive and emotional) of empathetic creativity. This research provides timely implications to help FLEs in high-contact services stay competitive.

Originality/value

This study introduces the new construct of empathetic creativity, which goes beyond the traditional definition of creativity in services and highlights the importance of empathetic intelligence for FLEs in future employment. This study also develops a multi-item scale to measure this construct, which can be applied to future service management research.

中文翻译：

---

服务机器人时代一线员工的同理心创造力：概念化与规模化发展

目的

虽然机器人通过接管更多的机械和分析智能任务，越来越威胁到一线员工（FLEs）的未来就业，但它们仍然无法“体验”和“感觉”来占据 FLE 可以更好地处理的移情智能任务。因此，本研究旨在通过经验开发和验证一个衡量新的所谓移情创造力的量表，即在服务遭遇期间实践和执行移情智能技能时具有创造性。

设计/方法/方法

本研究采用多阶段设计开发量表。第 1 阶段将文献综述与 3,737 条与服务机器人相关的 YouTube 评论中的文本挖掘相结合，生成 16 项捕捉这一新结构的项目。第 2 阶段评估这些项目的表面效度和内容效度，而第 3 阶段招募 Prolific FLE 样本来评估结构效度。第 4 阶段使用 PLS-SEM 和第 5 阶段实验专用努力（与自然天赋）检查此构造的规范有效性，作为培养 FLE 感知的移情创造力的有效方法。

发现

最终量表由 13 个精致的项目组成，这些项目捕捉了移情创造力的三个维度（社交、互动和情感）。这项研究为帮助高接触服务中的 FLE 保持竞争力提供了及时的启示。

原创性/价值

本研究介绍了移情创造力的新结构，它超越了服务中创造力的传统定义，并强调了移情智力对 FLE 在未来就业中的重要性。本研究还开发了一个多项目量表来衡量这一结构，可应用于未来的服务管理研究。