Consumers’ perceived value of Social IoT based online community: investigating social awareness processes surrounding smart kitchen robot appliances

Situated within the broader Social Internet of Things (SIoT) paradigm, where objects autonomously communicate, learn, and establish social relationships (Machine 2 Machine and Machine 2 Human), this study investigates via Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) the social awareness processes at hand and establishes the drivers of consumers’ perceived value of SIoT based online communities (OCs). We leverage the case of smart kitchen robot appliances, such as Cookeo by Moulinex, and a sample of female respondents (n = 335) from France who all own and use such SIoT kitchen robot devices. The model demonstrates that the perceived value of SIoT based OCs stems from three SIoT community related activities, mutual aid, participation, and enjoyment, that are respectively driven by three motivational factors, including the willingness to co-produce, the willingness to connect to others, and the willingness to learn from the community. The vibrant exchanges in these cooking OCs reveal evolving relationships’ configuration and demands among participants integrating SIoT technology reach in the meaning and historical specificity of cooking as a cultural practice. Our contributions relate to the identification of consumers’ perceived value of SIoT based OCs drivers and to the critical debate about gender in SIoT technology and services development.