The Adoption of Self-Service Technologies (PDF)

Master's Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 9, Maastricht University, language: English, abstract: The combination of today's ever increasing competition in the marketplace and rapid technology development change the way how services are designed, produced, and experienced. One of the outcomes of this changing nature of services is the proliferation of self-service technologies, which reflect a new way how companies seek to efficiently serve their customers. However, not all self-service technologies are successfully adopted, and not all consumers engage in the technology-based self-service economy. So, what drives consumers to provide services by themselves without service employee involvement? This master thesis aims at gaining further insight into the factors being critical to the consumers' adoption of self-service technologies. In particular, this research focuses on the role of consumer readiness consisting of role clarity, motivation, and ability, and the moderating effects of consumers' trust and experiences related to the service provider and the self-service technology on the consumers' voluntary decision to use airlines' self-check-in op-tions. In addition, a potential self-service technology interface dependence of the adoption factors' influence is examined by means of a scenario-based approach. The corresponding empirical study makes use of a web-based survey facing the 239 respondents with the choice between the counter check-in and either a kiosk or Internet check-in option. The results confirm the critical role of motivation and role clarity, but question the raison-d'être of the dimension ability. The findings also provide evidence for trust and experiences having moderating effects on the relationship between consumer readiness and self-service technology use. A potential self-service technology interface dependence of the factors is suggested by the results; however, the alternative explanation that the sample's Internet-experience is responsible for the identified dependence can not be ruled out. This master thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of critical factors influencing the adoption of self-service technologies, and underlines the importance of integrating all three aspects relevant to SST adoption - the consumer, self-service technology, and service provider.