###### Abstract  
With the rapid development of industry 4.0 and the boom of large-scale product customization, the adoption of collaborative robots' innovation becomes a hot topic in research. Previous studies have mainly focused on individuals, but few on enterprises, and in particular, there has been a lack of empirical research on the enterprise level. Based on the combined model of Technology-Organization-Environment Framework (TOE) and Diffusion of Innovations Theory (DOI), this study investigated 373 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Guangdong Province, China, to explore the determinants of SMEs' adoption of collaborative robot innovation in technology, organization, and environment. The result shows that the technical factors of relative advantage, compatibility, observability, and trialability have a significant positive correlation with the adoption of collaborative robots, while complexity has a significant negative correlation with the adoption. Among the organizational factors, top management support and organizational readiness have a significant positive correlation with the adoption of collaborative robots. Among the environmental factors, agent support is positively and significantly correlated with adoption. The findings will help practitioners develop appropriate strategies for the adoption of collaborative robot innovation. small and medium-sized enterprises; collaborative robots; innovation adoption; technological-organization-environment framework; diffusion of innovations theory +
Footnote †: journal: Applied  
definition  
size of the potential user base, the growth of the entire collaborative robot industry market is expected to be very high, but the current adoption of collaborative robots by SMEs is still at an early stage [4; 16; 17]. For a long time, operational efficiency and ergonomics, and human factors have been considered the main determinants of the adoption of collaborative robots [6; 18]. Early articles pointed out that collaborative robots can increase productivity while minimizing the trauma caused by repetitive or overloaded movements in workers' material handling [19]. A large number of recent studies have explored that collaborative robots can take over workers' repetitive and heavy tasks, to reduce the incidence of workers' musculoskeletal diseases (MSDS), and improve ergonomic working conditions [20; 21; 22]. However, while collaborative robots continue to take over workers' tasks and effectively improve the operation efficiency of enterprises (such as improving production efficiency, improving product quality, and meeting customized needs), workers' concerns about being displaced by robots and losing their jobs can affect the adoption of collaborative robots [23]. Therefore, many studies have also proposed numerous solutions to address the problem of human-machine trust [24; 25; 26] and the ethical issues of human-machine cooperation [27] in collaborative robot adoption. However, the existing research mainly focuses on the individual level to explain the determinants of the adoption of collaborative robots by enterprises, and there is a lack of research on the determinants of the adoption of collaborative robots at the enterprise level [28]. Although a recent study has explored the willingness to adopt collaborative robots at the enterprise level, there is a lack of further discussion in empirical research [29], especially for SMEs, the main target customers of collaborative robots. Therefore, this study raises the following research questions:  
RQ1: What are the enterprise-level determinants for SMEs to adopt collaborative robot innovation? RQ2: What are the impacts of enterprise-level determinants on SMEs' adoption of collaborative robot innovation? To figure out the above problems, this study draws on the Diffusion of Innovations Theory (DOI) and the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework to develop a model, and the structural equation model (SEM) based on SmartPLS 3.0 was used to conduct an empirical analysis.