Consumer Adoption of Smart Services: The Role of Service Technology Autonomy
(A2019-4202)

AUTHORS

Stefanie Sohn, Technische Universität Braunschweig

KEYWORDS

value-based adoption; service autonomy; smart services

ABSTRACT

Smart service delivery typically requires customer or employee interaction in addition to the service provided by the service technology itself. Driven by the advancements in information technologies, technology autonomy in smart service delivery gains in relevance. Independent of the users’ intervention, the service technology carries out actions like scanning or pay-ment. Despite first implementations in physical retail, knowledge is sparse on consumers’ adoption of these smart services, especially in comparison with other smart services. Hence, this study develops and empirically tests a value-based adoption model. The results of a sce-nario-based survey reveal that consumers form their adoption intentions of smart services through value perceptions. Consumers balance costs (i.e., cognitive effort and privacy risk) against benefits (i.e., time savings and control) in the process of creating value of smart ser-vices while an increasing service autonomy strengthens the effects of control perceptions on value.