Robots as a Place for Socializing: Influences of Collaborative Robots on Social Dynamics In- and Outside the Production Cells

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Introducing robots in the workplace entails new practices and configurations at the individual, organizational, and social levels. Prior work has focused on how robots may have an immediate effect on individual employees or tasks rather than their gradual influences on employees collectively or their organization over time. By drawing on fourteen in-situ interviews with six cobot operators in a Danish manufacturing company, this paper investigates how collaborative robots (cobots) in the manufacturing context may engage broader interactions beyond the robot-operator interaction. This includes spatial configurations centering around the cobots, social interactions among employees, and information flow through, within, or outside the production cell. Introducing and implementing cobots has social dynamics at its core, which we explore in-depth. This paper argues that the design of cobots and the environment around them should accommodate the possibility of more complicated social and organizational changes brought about by these robots. Lastly, we discuss research and design implications for the future of workplaces involving robots.