Will artificial intelligence replace human customer service? The impact of communication quality and privacy risks on adoption intention

In the digital environment, chatbots as customer service agents assist consumers in decision making. Based on the computers-are-social-actors paradigm, this study examines the perceived differences in communication quality and privacy risks between different service agents and their impact on consumers' adoption intention, and investigates whether these perceived differences might depend on differences in the user's human interaction need. A series of five scenario-based experiments were carried out to collect data and test hypotheses. It was discovered that: different types of service agents directly affect consumers' adoption intention; perceived communication quality and privacy risk mediate the effect of service agent type on adoption intention; the effects of service agent type on perceived accuracy, communicative competence, and privacy risk are moderated by the need for human interaction. The findings of this study provide important insights into the rational use of human−computer interacation in e-commerce.     

Integrating technology readiness into technology acceptance: The TRAM model

Based on previous theoretical streams, the present study integrates technology readiness (TR) into the technology acceptance model (TAM) in the context of consumer adoption of e‐service systems, and theorizes that the impact of TR on use intention is completely mediated by both perceptions of usefulness and ease of use. TAM was originally developed to predict people's technology‐adopting behavior at work environments, but this research stemmed from a questioning of its applicability in marketing (i.e., non‐work) settings. The differences between the two settings are exhibited by consumers' self‐determining selection behavior and their high involvement in the e‐service creation and delivery process. This paper first reviews the TAM and the construct of technology readiness, and then proposes and empirically tests an integrated Technology Readiness and Acceptance Model (TRAM) to augment TAM by taking technology readiness construct into the realm of consumers' adoption of innovations. The results indicate that TRAM substantially broadens the applicability and the explanatory power of either of the prior models and may be a better way to gauge technology adoption in situations where adoption is not mandated by organizational objectives. Further, theoretical and practical implications and future research directions are discussed. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A new theoretical framework of shopping motives and channel preference behaviour in the digital era

The unprecedented dissemination of digital technology has changed people's psychology including their shopping behaviour in the last two decades. Smartphone led digital applications and advancements have disrupted consumers' shopping processes, purchase decisions, and priorities as well as increased their exposure, aspirations and expectations inevitably. Therefore, it is imperative to examine the relevance of various elements of shopping motives holistically. Therefore, the present study aims to develop a new theoretical framework based on significant elements of shopping motives for physical products in the digital technology era. For this purpose, an exploratory study, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used. EFA generated five latent factors by grouping 18 independent variables. CFA validated latent factor construct and measured model fit. SEM visualized the path analysis and portrayed the pattern of relations between latent factors into a single factor structural model (consumer shopping motives framework). Results show that consumers' shopping priorities are changing as 3 conventional variables (‘role-playing’, ‘status and authority’, and ‘pleasure of bargaining’) became obsolete and 3 new (‘anywhere and any-time shopping’, ‘safe and secure digital transaction’, and ‘unbiased reviews and ratings”) came into existence prominently. The format and perspective of ‘fun, entertainment and recreation’ ‘social interaction and communication’, and ‘exposure to new and latest trends' have been changing. Consumers are becoming more technology-dependent in their shopping processes and purchase decisions. The validation of the framework on channel preference behaviour revealed that consumers largely prefer offline channels for the fulfilment of risk-free and social sub-motives, and online channels for convenience sub-motive. Therefore, broad structural change and clarity, specification of priorities, a shift in the format and perspective of few elements of shopping motives, intrinsic passion for the use of digital technology and web service in the shopping journey, and simplification of antecedents for growing popularity of multi-channel shopping paradigm are the key novelty of this study.     

Resolving Cross-cultural Ethical Conflict: An Empirical Test of a Decision Tree Model in an Educational Setting

The authors have previously developed and described a decision tree model for addressing cross-cultural ethical conflicts. The model is intended to provide an ethically sound yet pragmatic tool for decision makers facing such situations. This paper presents the results of an empirical test of the model in an educational setting with a sample of business students. Students trained to use the model demonstrated significantly more flexibility and appropriateness in their decisions on case scenarios than those who were not trained. The implications for use of the model in educational settings and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Elaboration of marketing communication through visual media: An empirical analysis

Visual media plays a significant role in the marketing and promotion of several international tourism services in today's connected marketplace, in particular here, international tertiary education. This study was developed to examine how visual media influence potential audiences' perception towards a specific educational tourism destination through the theoretical framework of Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986). Researchers compare central and peripheral routes of individual persuasion via visual media and this aids marketers' understanding of how visual media impact consumers' purchase decisions. This study confirms a positive relationship between argument quality, audience engagement, source credibility, audience involvement and international students as tourists' perceived destination image. The findings suggest that peripheral routes of persuasion have stronger effects on individual adoption of information than central routes of persuasion. The study provides useful insight for tertiary education agents who promote international studies, destination marketers, and other users of visual media communicators.     

The Struggle is Real: Insights from a Supply Chain Blockchain Case

Despite the anticipated benefits and the numerous announcements of pilot cases, we have seen very few successful implementations of blockchain technology (BCT) solutions in supply chains. Little is empirically known about the obstacles to blockchain adoption, particularly in a supply chain's interorganizational setting. In supply chains, blockchains' benefits, for example, BCT‐based tracking and tracing, are dependent on a critical mass of supply chain actors adopting the technology. While previous research has mainly been conceptual and has lacked both theory and empirical data, we propose a theory‐based model for interorganizational adoption of BCT. We use the proposed model to analyze a unique in‐depth revelatory case study. Our case study confirms previous conceptual work and reveals a paradox as well as several tensions between drivers for and against (positive and negative determining factors, respectively) of BCT adoption that must be managed in an interorganizational setting. In this vertical context, the adoption and integration decision of one supply chain actor recursively affects the adoption and integration decisions of the other supply chain actors. This paper contributes midrange theory on BCT in supply chain management (SCM), future research directions, and managerial insights on BCT adoption in supply chains.     

Privacy versus accessibility: The impact of situationally conditioned belief

The information age we are living in and the technology that supports it, raises new ethical concerns. Among these concerns are privacy — the rights of individuals to withold information they consider sensitive, and accessibility — the rights of individuals to obtain information that is relevant to the decisions they must make. Arguments about potential impacts of information technology on privacy and accessibility mask and underlying conflict — that one person's beliefs about their right to relevant information is likely to conflict with another person's belief's about their right to withold information they consider sensitive. This paper proposes that the conflict is likely to be a function of the role the individuals plays in the decision making situation — situationally conditioned belief (SCB) — rather than a function of the person's underlying ethical values.This paper presents an empirical study involving information privacy and accessibility in routine business and market decisions, designed to reveal the presence of SCBs. The results indicate that SCBs cause a gap in beliefs about information accessibility and privacy. Impacts of the SCB gap are discussed. A negotiation technique called information exchange is suggested as a means of closing the SCB gap in routine business and market transactions. Dr. Laura Lally received her Ph.D. in Information Systems. Dr. Lally pursues research on the impacts of information technology on a nation's culture, on business profitability, and on the ethical choices faced by individuals. She has published articles in Decision Sciences, the Information Society, the Journal of Global Information Management and in the Journal of End User Computing. She is currently investigating the risk factors involved in process reengineering under a grant from the National Science Foundation.     

Making a first impression as a start-up: Strategies to overcome low initial trust perceptions in digital innovation adoption

High failure rates of digital innovations by start-ups indicate that consumers' initial trust perceptions are make-or-break for their survival. Hence, start-ups have to design adequate business models to manage consumers' initial trust perceptions of digital innovations. Five experiments explore how start-ups can signal trustworthiness in order to overcome low initial trust perceptions and boost adoption. We find three specific design strategies of start-ups' digital business models – customer ratings, benefit communication, and revenue model – to be effective to overcome low initial trust perceptions and to increase adoption of digital innovations. The findings demonstrate that initial trust serves as a critical mediator in the relationship between these design strategies and consumers' adoption intentions. Additionally, the chosen revenue model has differential effects on privacy concerns, which mediate the relationship between revenue model and initial trust. The present empirical insights help start-ups to craft business model design strategies for successful digital innovation launch.     

Determining factors and impacts of the intention to adopt mobile banking app in Cameroon: Case of SARA by afriland First Bank

This study aims to know what are the factors determining the adoption of M-Banking app among customers in Cameroon. In other words, what are the factors that influence users in their decisions to adopt and use a system or technology such as the MBanking app, and indirectly, what is the impact of this use on both the customers and financial inclusion? The research model developed relying on a combination of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM ), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology ( UTAUT2 ), Information System Success Model ( ISSM ), and Protection Motivation Theory ( PMT ) and other constructs; it was then tested with a sample of 223 users of the “ SARA” M-Banking app of the financial institution called “ Afriland First Bank” . Findings revealed that: (1) utilitarian expectation, hedonic motivation, and status gain, habit, and perceived privacy concern have a significant influence on the intention to adopt M-Banking apps; and (2) the exploitative/explorative use of this technology has an impact on user’s loyalty and satisfaction but also contributes strongly to fostering financial inclusion in Cameroon. Also, the Multi-group analysis was performed on the sample using 2 gender-based groups (males, n=121; females, n=102).     

Adoption of Biometric Authentication Systems: Implications for Research and Practice in the Deployment of End-User Security Systems

Recent security lapses have demonstrated the importance of augmenting authentication protocols in sensitive areas of the economy, such as financial services and banking. In addition, new legislative requirements for secondary authentication mechanisms have highlighted the use of biometric technology as a reliable, but not required, means of authentication. The focus of this study examines the factors that influence the adoption of biometric authentication in organizations. The research model measures the relative contribution that variables in three categories (External Pressure, Readiness, and Perceived Benefits) have in the intent to adopt biometric authentication in financial services institutions. Managers of these institutions were surveyed, and the resulting model indicates that, as expected, the intent to adopt is driven by competitive factors, an organization's financial resources, and the perceived benefits associated with the technology. An important unanticipated finding from this research is that managerial support was not shown to be significantly related to adoption intent, which may be attributed to the context of biometric systems adoption. This research advances our understanding of the adoption literature by demonstrating how structural factors can influence the decisions made by organizational actors and by applying theories of adoption to a new technology—biometrics.     

New product adoption in social networks: Why direction matters

Marketing managers and researchers generally agree that analyzing data from social networks and using them to influence consumers' purchase decisions are useful strategies. However, not all social network data may identify the most influential customers. This empirical study of more than 300 students reveals the low explanatory power of friendship networks (e.g., Facebook) and undirected-advice networks (e.g., LinkedIn). Only directed-advice networks (e.g., Google +) clearly identify influential consumers. In addition, the results challenge conventional wisdom that firms should target advisers assuming that they have the strongest influence on new product adoption. This study contradicts this common assumption and reveals that structural equivalence drives product adoption more than cohesion because advisees' adoption pressures advisers to purchase the product as well. Finally, the study shows the value of social network data beyond the traditional ego-centric psychographic metrics, such as innovativeness or opinion leadership.     

Enjoyment and social influence: predicting mobile payment adoption

Models of technology adoption, notably the Technology Acceptance Model and the Unified Theories of Acceptance and Use of Technology, provide good theoretical foundations for understanding mobile payment adoption. This study extends these frameworks by incorporating perceived enjoyment, social influence, knowledge and perceived risk. Replications of established theories are tested in a new context of young people's adoption of mobile payment. Subsequent hypotheses test an extended theoretical framework using an online survey (N?=?316). The extended model improves previous models by explaining 62% of variation in intention to use. Against expectations, perceived ease of use had no significant effect on perceived usefulness and intention to use. The study contributes to advancing understanding of perceived enjoyment which had no direct effect on adoption intention but a significant effect on perceived ease of use and usefulness. Social influence reduces perceived risk, and further contribution is made by noting that perceived enjoyment lowers perceived risk.     

Capturing the Commercial World of Children: The Feasibility of Wearable Cameras to Assess Marketing Exposure

There is widespread concern about the implications of increased targeting of marketing to children. However, despite the ubiquitous presence of marketing in children's environments, children's actual exposure to the full range of marketing across all media and in multiple settings remains unknown. This article reports on an innovative method of analysis, using data from wearable automated cameras, to objectively document children's marketing exposure across and within settings. Results show children were exposed to an average of 638 marketing encounters per day. The most common form of marketing exposure was to brand labeling, and marketing for food and beverages the dominant product category. This article provides an objective observation of the commercial world of children in a wide range of settings, presenting unique insights and a new analysis method for documenting children's environmental advertising exposure to inform policy decisions about the ethics and practices of marketing to children.     

The Future of Privacy: A Consumer‐Oriented Approach to Managing Personal Data Online

Beginning with Facebook's recent controversial “tweaks” to its privacy policy and its promise to support users against employers and others who attempt to compel users to divulge passwords, we critically review European Union (EU) and US digital privacy initiatives. Whereas the EU proposal relies on legislative regulation, the United States proposes industry self‐regulation partially enforceable by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). We conclude that not only do the sharply differing EU and US approaches present significant problems of global digital interoperability, but neither proposal promises to result in practical and feasible consumer protection, at least not in the near term. Moreover, the EU proposal poses serious threats to the profitability of digital commerce. As an alternative, we propose a “third approach,” empowering the individual digital consumer/user through a personal online strategy we call “wide‐open privacy,” which provides security without sacrificing the transformative economic, cultural, and personal benefits of the Internet. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How perceived trust mediates merchant's intention to use a mobile wallet technology

As mobile wallets are in constant demand and growing over the past few years, there is a need to identify views of different stakeholders involved in the process. Several studies have been done to investigate consumers' perspective intensively. On the other hand, review of perception and adoption of wallet services by other participants, in particular merchants, is often neglected. The present study aims to fill this gap. This study used an empirical model to measure merchant's intention to use a mobile wallet technology. The study includes the variables, perceived compatibility, perceived usefulness, awareness, perceived cost, perceived customer value addition and perceived trust, and aims to determine their influence on intention to use. Our study also tested the mediating effect of perceived trust on the influence of perceived usefulness to predict merchant's intention. The study includes results of the survey of 315 Indian merchants by an online survey method. We find the highest effect of perceived customer value addition on merchant's intention, followed by perceived usefulness of technology. The proposed mediation effect of perceived trust was small but significant on perceived usefulness. The results of the study can help mobile payment companies to understand factors that are relevant to increase adoption of technology in the context of merchants.     

Cross-decision social effects in product adoption and defection decisions

Researchers and practitioners have long been aware of the capacity to use information on consumers' product adoptions and defections to forecast the adoption and defection behavior of others in their social networks. Yet, herein, we suggest that such information still holds substantial untapped predictive potential. Specifically, this paper is the first to define and investigate cross-decision social effects, i.e., the effects of customer defections on network neighbors' adoption decisions, and the effects of customer adoptions on network neighbors' defection decisions. We incorporate these effects into a conceptual framework that enables us to explore them concurrently with same-decision social effects (the effects of adoptions on adoptions and of defections on defections), which have been researched extensively. We develop a multi-event hazard model to describe this framework, and estimate it using two unique data sets on a communication network and on adoption and defection dates for a mobile add-on. We obtain strong empirical evidence for negative cross-decision social effects that are larger for strong ties than for weak ties.     

Locating a Space for Ethics to Appear in Decision-making: Privacy as an Exemplar

Using concepts from Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society, this paper argues that as expertise proliferates questions of ethics in decision-making fall through gaps between domains of expertise. As a consequence, unethical outcomes are unattached to actions taken with no one accountable or responsible for these outcomes. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), a case study is presented showing how the sale of students’ personal information by the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) escaped questions of ethics. The sale of student information was the product of the convergence of narrowly focussed technology and education expert actions and decisions with an earlier two-stage translation of privacy from a potential ethical issue to an issue of expert rule creation and interpretation. The purpose of this paper is to show, through an example, how questions of ethics are displaced in expert decision-making and to enable the public, managers, individuals and experts to recognize displacements and, through this, create a space for ethics to appear. Bill has conducted extensive research in the area of information technology and privacy, with a particular emphasis on how privacy issues play out in practice. The variety and complexity of interacting influences that shape privacy in practice has lead Bill to expand the scope of his research to include history, ethics and public plicy.     

Understanding consumers’ decisions to adopt technology-enabled transformative services

This study extends understanding of consumers' decisions to adopt transformative services delivered via technology. It incorporates competitive effects into the model of goal-directed behavior which, in keeping with the majority of consumer decision making models, neglects to explicitly account for competition. A goal-level operationalization of competition, incorporating both direct and indirect competition, is proposed. A national web-based survey collected data from 431 respondents about their decisions to adopt mental health services delivered via mobile phone. The findings show that the extent to which consumers perceived using these transformative services to be more instrumental to achieving their goals than competition had the greatest impact on their adoption decisions. This finding builds on the limited empirical evidence for the inclusion of competitive effects to more fully explain consumers' decisions to adopt technology-based and other services. It also provides support for a broader operationalization of competition with respect to consumers' personal goals.     

Adoption of in-store mobile payment: Are perceived risk and convenience the only drivers?

Smartphones are changing the way consumers shop, even in brick-and-mortar settings. This study explores consumers’ adoption of proximity mobile payment technology (p-m-payment), which enables them to pay with their smartphones for purchases in a physical store. With a perceived value perspective, the authors identify utilitarian, hedonic, and social benefits and financial and privacy risks as key drivers. They also investigate differences compared with the drivers of more familiar mobile shopping usages and highlight the role of experience. The paper discusses implications for both mobile and channel research and recommendations to help retailers take advantage of p-m-payment technology.     

Privacy threats with retail technologies: A consumer perspective

This paper focuses on new retail technologies that acquire information from consumers, advancing that such devices represent privacy management concerns. Specifically, we propose that privacy perceptions in a retail environment are driven by retailer- and technology-related factors as well as consumers' personality traits. By running a moderated serial mediation analysis, we address the technologies' fairness and hedonism as antecedents of consumer privacy perceptions, technology acceptance and perceived value, and account for consumers' trust in the retailer. We find that privacy perceptions are directly affected by distributive fairness, while the technology's hedonism affects acceptance. Further, the effects extend to patronage intention and word-of-mouth.