Beyond technology acceptance: understanding consumer practice

Abstract

Purpose – To critically examine the current definitions of key constructs of the technology acceptance model (TAM) in a consumer technology-based service. \ud Design/methodology/approach – Two qualitative research studies were undertaken that encouraged consumers to reflect upon their text message (short message service – SMS) behaviour. \ud Findings – The research highlights the inadequacy of a concentration on simple acceptance of technology where technology is embedded in a consumer community of practice. The existence of counter-intuitive behaviours, technology paradoxes and intense social and emotional elements in actual text message usage all point to the need for a review of the definition of the key TAM constructs. \ud Research limitations/implications – There is a need to re-examine the construct of use behaviour in the context of the practice of technology-based services that owe much to consumer creativity. Theory development of the constructs of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment should not be constrained by adherence to the existing (well developed) quantitative models of technology acceptance. There is a methodological potential of employing consumers as practical authors. \ud Practical implications – Where there is evidence of counter-intuitive consumer behaviour in the marketplace for technology-based products or services, a study of practice, with a view to the subsequent derivation of adapted theory constitutes worthwhile research. This may be of special importance to cell phone operators promoting SMS to US consumers. \ud Originality/value – The approach offers a method of complementing the dominant quantitative modelling research on technology acceptance. The findings are relevant to an era where consumer co-creation of value is of increasing interest

The effect of self-checkout quality on customer satisfaction and repatronage in a retail context

“…Moreover, among various SSTs, ''off-site'' options (such as online shopping or internet banking) have received relatively more attention in previous research than ''on-site'' options (Lin and Hsieh 2011;Orel and Kara 2014) 1 . In the particular case of self-checkout in retail stores, little is known due to its recent introduction and specific literature (e.g., Anselmsson 2001;Dabholkar et al 2003, Weijters et al 2007Wang et al 2012) is difficult to find (Marzocchi and Zammit 2006;Wang et al 2013). Therefore, there is a notable need for both researchers and practitioners to examine customer expectations of SST service quality in the emerging customer-technology interaction-based service settings (Lin and Hsieh 2011).…”

Customer decision-making processes and motives for self-service technology usage in multi-channel hospitality environments

“…The dearth of research on actual customer usage behaviours during SST encounters (Wang et al, 2012) and the numerous calls for qualitative research (Baron et al, 2006;Lin and Chang, 2011) justified the employment of short qualitative interviews as a data collection method (Carson et al, 2001). Specifically, the primary data collection for this study involved short, semi-structured interviews with 133 airline passengers in the departure lounge of an international airport.…”

“…Seven of the most often researched SST adoption factors in the literature include demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, income and education), trust, perceived risk, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, technology readiness and preference for personal contact (Kelly et al, 2011). Baron et al (2006) and Gelderman et al (2011) suggest that the widely popular empirical testing of factors predicting the adoption of technology by consumers is reaching saturation. There is a need to explore how consumers use the technology that they have adopted and to understand the nuances of consumer behaviour which are difficult to capture with standard questionnaires (Baron et al, 2006;Lin and Chang, 2011).…”

“…Baron et al (2006) and Gelderman et al (2011) suggest that the widely popular empirical testing of factors predicting the adoption of technology by consumers is reaching saturation. There is a need to explore how consumers use the technology that they have adopted and to understand the nuances of consumer behaviour which are difficult to capture with standard questionnaires (Baron et al, 2006;Lin and Chang, 2011). Furthermore, Wang et al (2012) suggest that SST research has predominantly studied the adoption of SST interfaces in isolation from contextual factors such as the other available channels to obtain the particular service.…”

Adoption of SMS and Web Based System to Measure Usability and Effectiveness of Text Alert System as Broadcast Communication for Managing and Disseminating Information

“…European networks began development of a digital standard (GSM) in 1991. Phase 2 of the standard, release in 1993, defined data bearing services over GSM and SMS was a part of this standard [2][3].…”