How Does Employee Dependence on Intelligent Machines Influence Turnover Intention? A Serial Mediation via Workplace Objectification and Workplace Loneliness.

While integrating intelligent machines enhances workplace efficiency, it paradoxically correlates with increased employee turnover. To explain this efficiency-turnover paradox, this study draws primarily on conservation of resources theory to investigate how employees' dependence on intelligent machines triggers turnover intention. Using data from a two-wave longitudinal survey with a two-month lag among 241 manufacturing employees in China, we tested a serial mediation model. Results indicate that dependence on intelligent machines does not directly predict turnover intention. Instead, it exerts an indirect effect through a resource-depleting serial mechanism. By transferring human-machine interaction patterns to interpersonal relations, machine dependence triggers workplace objectification, which in turn exacerbates workplace loneliness. Faced with this severe relational and emotional depletion, employees develop turnover intention as a self-protective strategy. By integrating technological, socio-cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions, the findings demonstrate that digital reliance undermines employee retention primarily through a cascade of interpersonal objectification and emotional loneliness, underscoring the necessity of techno-humanistic management practices.