Technology readiness in a B2B online retail context: An examination of antecedents and outcomes

Abstract

This paper develops and empirically tests a model that examines the role of Technology Readiness (TR) in the Business-to-Business (B2B) context. It examines how the antecedents of TR affect the construct, and how the construct affects evaluations of a complex credence based B2B service. The research investigates how the retailers' TR impacts their evaluation of web solution service providers (WSSPs). It responds to previous research calls by extending the TR construct from the business-to-consumer (B2C) perspective that is traditional in the extant literature into the B2B domain. The key findings of a survey conducted with 133 firms in the retail industry are that TR is an important contributor to the eventual achievement of service quality and satisfaction. The key contributions of this study are; first it develops and validates a measure of TR in a B2B context; second it investigates the antecedents of TR in this domain, demonstrating the impact of past inexperience, industry trust and switching costs on firms' level of technology readiness to adopt online operations; and third, it finds that service quality and satisfaction are outcomes of TR. The key management implication for WSSPs is the need to address the TR levels of existing and potential clients if they wish to deliver successful e-business solutions to them, and that their clients' TR can be better managed by making the offerings more easily understood, building relational rapport, reducing risk perceptions and adopting a client centric perspective throughout the process.

Technology readiness: a meta-analysis of conceptualizations of the construct and its impact on technology usage

“…For example, the full instrument to measure the four TR dimensions is very long, making it inconvenient to use (Parasuraman and Colby 2015); additionally, the two motivator (inhibitor) dimensions have often been found to display similar effects empirically (Liljander et al 2006), which raises the question of whether it is necessary or meaningful to treat them as distinct dimensions. Other studies have adopted a onedimensional conceptualization by combining the four dimensions into overall TR, 4 or using one dimension to represent TR (Vize et al 2013). Although methodologically convenient, this may hinder investigation of differential effects of the four TR dimensions and fail to reveal the complete role that different dimensions play in explaining technology usage.…”

“…People high in discomfort are more likely to feel overwhelmed when using a technology, which makes the technology experience less satisfactory. Skeptical people are less likely to gain satisfaction from a technology because they mistrust it and have security concerns (Vize et al 2013). Thus, H7: Satisfaction is (a) positively related to motivators, and (b) negatively related to inhibitors.…”

“…First, age is negatively related to motivators (Dutot 2014 Education Referring to trait-formation theory, we expect education to be related to an individual's TR (Anastasi 1983 Experience We define experience as the number of technology-related experiences an individual has accumulated (Alba and Hutchinson 1987). We expect past experience to positively influence an individual's TR (Vize et al 2013). First, experience is positively related to motivators.…”

CONSUMERS’ PERCEIVED RISK AND ITS EFFECT ON ADOPTION OF ONLINE BANKING SERVICES

“…That is why it seems that innovation adoption can affect the adoption of consumers' online banking services. But there must be a consumer centric perspective about this process (Vize et al, 2013).…”

The relationships of technology readiness, perceived value, satisfaction, and continuance intention – A study of self-service technologies in Viet Nam

“…28 ) or posited as second-order reflective construct (e.g. 44 ), our conceptualization of TR as a second-order formative construct may be a better representation for the theoretical content of TR as originally suggested by Parasuraman 5 . Fourth, in terms of the outcomes of consumer TR, while a great deal of previous papers focused on cognitive assessment (as perceived usefulness in 7 ), or both cognition and emotions (as in 45 , the influence of TR on customer perceived value, an overall assessment of experiencing product/service ( 8 , seemed to have not yet been investigated in the technology adoption and SSTs literature.…”