FAIHRT- Project

Designing the collaboration of humans and robots has been studied across multiple scientific disciplines and is increasingly entering organizational reality. While previous research has primarily examined dyads—that is, the interaction of one human with one robot—the present project focuses on teams, meaning groups of three or more members working together on a joint task. In such human–robot teams, the perception of fairness plays a central role, as it can influence members’ well-being, behaviour, and collaboration, as well as overall task performance. It is particularly relevant, as robots within a team may be perceived as unfair, while at the same time serving as a design lever for creating fairer teams. Nonetheless, fairness in such teams has so far received little scholarly attention. The aim of this project, therefore, is to systematically analyse fairness in human–robot teams both qualitatively and quantitatively—with a particular focus on robot-related factors (e.g., form and behaviour), team- related factors (e.g., hierarchy, role), and task characteristics. This will serve as basis for an interdisciplinary research agenda to shaping fair human–robot teams, laying the foundation for an interdisciplinary research group funded by the DFG.