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We are offering a self-funded PhD position in AI Social and Digital Innovation with Brunel Business School. The project focuses on Investigating the impact of service automation, robots, and AI on customer engagement and wellbeing in the hospitality industry.

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

If you have any questions about the project or would like to arrange an informal discussion, please reach out to Dr Ezgi Merdin Uygur at ezgi.merdinuygur@brunel.ac.uk.

The project

The service and hospitality industry, specifically restaurants, is undergoing a profound transformation driven by the rapid adoption of service automation and robotic technologies.

From AI-powered chatbots and self-service kiosks/screens to sophisticated service robots and interactive smart screens, these technologies reformed the traditional way restaurants operate by reducing costs, improving efficiency, and enhancing customer experiences and satisfaction, providing them with elements of novelty and convenience.

This paradigm shift in service encounters requires a deeper understanding of how customer interact with service automation and influence their perceptions.

Here are some helpful research questions:

• The impact of interaction quality with automated service frontlines on customers’ psychological ownership
• The consequences of customer-automated service frontline interaction
• The role of perceived control and autonomy as moderators to this relationship.

To test these relationships, mixed-method approach is ideal, including both qualitative and quantitative studies to generate deeper and diversified insights.

While the qualitative study may include field observation for different automated service settings to refine our understanding of the context and how customers behave and interact, the online secondary data can be analysed with tools such as content analysis or sentiment analysis.

These exploratory findings will lay the ground to refine field and online studies.

For example, designing an online experiment to test customer interaction with automated service frontlines by manipulating interaction variables and consumer variables such as autonomy and control.

Partnering up with a hospitality institution, there may be an opportunity to collect valuable field data from actual consumers.

Brunel offers a number of funding options to research students that help cover the cost of their tuition fees, contribute to living expenses or both. See more information here: /research/Research-degrees/Research-degree-funding. The UK Government is also offering Doctoral Student Loans for eligible students, and there is some funding available through the Research Councils. Many of our international students benefit from funding provided by their governments or employers. Brunel alumni enjoy tuition fee discounts of 15%.