The researchers have proposed a multilevel framework called human capital robotic integration (HCRI) to explain how collaboration between humans and robots reshapes team dynamics, strengthens human capital, and ultimately contributes to competitive advantage while also acknowledging the potential risks involved.
Background
As AI and robotics continue to advance, the conversation around workplace automation has evolved.
Where robots were once viewed primarily as substitutes for human workers, they are increasingly seen as collaborators that extend human capabilities. Despite this shift, most existing research has concentrated on micro-level interactions (individuals or dyads working with robots) without fully addressing how these interactions scale up to influence broader organizational outcomes and firm performance.
The authors of this study respond to this gap by developing a multilevel HCRI framework that connects day-to-day human–robot interactions to long-term value creation. Rather than presenting new empirical data, they offer a series of formal theoretical propositions (P1–P5) that explain how collaboration with robots can convert individual skills into collective, strategically valuable human capital resources.
From Substitution to Complementarity
To clarify their contribution, the researchers begin by contrasting two dominant perspectives on robot deployment in organizations: the substitute view and the complementary view.
The substitute view, common in economics and sociology, treats robots as replacements for human labor. It emphasizes efficiency, cost reduction, and macro-level consequences such as job displacement and wage pressure. In this framing, robots primarily affect organizations by reducing labor costs or altering workforce composition.
The complementary view, more prevalent in psychology and computer science, takes a different stance. Here, robots are seen as collaborators that enhance human performance, particularly in complex, knowledge-intensive tasks such as robotic-assisted surgery.
Yet research rooted in this perspective has largely remained confined to micro-level analyses, often conducted in controlled laboratory settings. As a result, it has struggled to explain how collaborative human–robot systems translate into sustained organizational performance.
The HCRI framework bridges these perspectives.
It builds on established findings about affective, behavioral, and cognitive emergent states in human–robot teams and integrates them with the strategic human capital resource literature.
The central claim is straightforward but powerful: when humans and robots collaborate effectively, the resulting social dynamics amplify and reconfigure individual knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), transforming them into a valuable unit-level resource.
This process does not unfold in isolation. Task interdependence plays a critical moderating role.
When work requires high levels of coordination, the link between collaborative social dynamics and resource emergence becomes stronger. Drawing on a microfoundations perspective, the framework explains how lower-level interactions, such as how people feel, think, and behave alongside robots, scale upward into higher-level organizational capabilities.
Value Creation, Value Capture, and Competitive Advantage
Once human capital becomes embedded within collaborative human–robot systems, its strategic significance increases. The authors argue that complementarities generated through HCRI enhance both value creation and value capture. As these resources become intertwined with firm-specific routines and social structures, they grow more difficult for competitors to replicate.
Isolating mechanisms such as firm specificity, social complexity, and causal ambiguity help protect these advantages. In this way, collaborative integration with robots can support sustained competitive advantage, not because machines replace people, but because they reshape how human capabilities are organized and deployed.
At the same time, the framework recognizes that value creation raises questions about value distribution.
As collaboration generates surplus value, a bilateral bargaining dynamic emerges between firms and employees. How that surplus is shared influences both motivation and long-term organizational outcomes. This extension moves the discussion beyond whether robots affect workplaces to how collaborative systems shape strategic resources and power dynamics within firms.
Discussion and Implications
Taken together, the HCRI model positions robots as complements that reshape affective, behavioral, and cognitive team dynamics. These changes strengthen and reconfigure individual KSAs into a collective, unit-level human capital resource. When task interdependence is high, the amplification effect is even more pronounced. The resulting resource base enhances value creation and, through isolating mechanisms such as firm specificity, can sustain competitive advantage over time.
Theoretically, the study distinguishes the complementary view from the substitution perspective while offering a multilevel bridge between human–robot interaction research and strategic human capital and resource-based theories. By explicitly linking micro-level processes to macro-level outcomes, it provides a coherent explanation grounded in microfoundations.
Practically, the framework encourages managers to move beyond automation strategies driven solely by efficiency. Instead, it highlights the importance of deliberately designing collaborative systems that strengthen performance while supporting employee engagement and commitment. Organizations that treat robots as partners may develop deeper, more durable sources of value.
Importantly, the authors do not overlook the potential downsides.
They call for greater clarity around the robot’s role within teams, whether as a tool, a dyadic partner, or even a leader within a leader–follower structure. They also caution against risks such as safety hazards, discomplementarity (where collaboration undermines learning or performance), diminished job meaning, and data privacy concerns. Strategic integration, they argue, must be accompanied by ethical, human-centered design and careful attention to unintended consequences.
Conclusion
By introducing the HCRI framework, this study offers a cohesive explanation of how human–robot collaboration can shape organizational outcomes.
Moving beyond the traditional substitute perspective, it shows how robots, when integrated as collaborative partners, can reshape team dynamics and strengthen human capital at the unit level.
Through a formal, proposition-based model that connects micro-level interactions to macro-level strategy, the authors demonstrate that lasting organizational value stems not from replacement, but from carefully structured complementarity. Individual skills, when amplified through collaborative systems, become collective, firm-specific resources that support value creation and sustained competitive advantage.
Journal Reference
Tsai, C., Marshall, J., Eckardt, R., Dionne, S., Jung, M., Hou, Y., & Yang, B. (2025). Human Capital Robotic Integration and Value Creation for Organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior. DOI:10.1002/job.70044 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/job.70044
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