Inhibitors and Enablers as Dual Factor Concepts in Technology Usage

Information systems (IS) research has focused extensively on the factors that foster adoption and usage. A large body of work explores overall beliefs about system usage, antecedents of system satisfaction, and other perceptions that enable system success, create positive attitudes, and encourage usage. However, much less attention has been given to what perceptions uniquely inhibit usage. In large part, this is due to the implicit assumption that the inhibitors of usage are merely the opposite of the enablers. This paper proposes a theory for the existence, nature, and effects of system attribute perceptions that lead solely to discourage use. I posit that usage inhibitors deserve an independent investigation on the basis of three key arguments. One, there exist perceptions that serve solely to discourage usage, and these are qualitatively different from the opposite of the perceptions that encourage usage. Two, these inhibiting and enabling perceptions are independent of one another and can coexist. Three, inhibiting and enabling perceptions have differing antecedent and consequent effects.. As unique beliefs, inhibiting perceptions can add to our understanding of the antecedents of usage or outright rejection. Further, such inhibitors may not only be important to the IS usage decision, they may be more important than enabling beliefs

Measuring the eCommerce Customer Service Lifecycle

This paper describes the preliminary conceptual development of an instrument to measure the ability of an e-commerce site to meet the service aspects of the Customer Service Life Cycle (CSLC) through the use of information technology (IT). In light of the emergence of e-commerce, there is a pressing need for the evaluation of IT-supported services from a customer service perspective. The CSLC purports to be a source of competitive advantage through the differentiation of service offerings (Ives and Learmonth 1984). The CSLC framework can also serve as a basis for the strategic development of interorganizational IT applications. While the CSLC has been discussed in the information systems literature since 1984, little empirical work has been done to develop measures of its constructs of interes

The Role of Similarity in e-Commerce Interactions: The Case of Online Shopping Assistants

This research proposes that technological artifacts are perceived as social actors, and that users can make personality and behavioral attributions towards them. These formed perceptions interact with the user’s own characteristics in the form of an evaluation of similarity. Using an automated shopping assistant, the study investigates the effects of two types of perceived similarity on a number of dependent variables. The results show that both, perceived personality similarity, as well as perceived behavioral similarity, between the user and the decision aid positively affect users’ evaluations of the technological artifact. Furthermore, the study investigates the role of design characteristics in forming social perceptions about the shopping assistant. The results indicate that design characteristics, namely content, can be used to manifest desired personalities and behaviors, allowing us to compute measures of “actual” similarity, which were found to predict perceived similarity

The Effect of Perceived Service Quality, Perceived Sacrifice and Perceived Service Outcome on Online Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty is a key driver of financial performance in service organizations. We investigate whether or not online customer loyalty can be increased through enhancing the perceived service quality, reducing perceived sacrifice and improving the perceived service outcome in the online service context with the possible availability of live help service technology. We also investigate the moderating role of customer product knowledge on these relationships. The empirical results indicate that 1) online customer loyalty increases with higher perceived service quality, lower perceived sacrifice and better perceived service outcome, 2) perceived service quality positively influences perceived service outcome while perceived sacrifice negatively influences perceived service outcome, 3) customer product knowledge negatively moderates the relationship between perceived service quality and online customer loyalty such that greater product knowledge weakens that relationship, 4) customer product knowledge positively moderates the relationship between perceived sacrifice and online customer loyalty. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Creating Rapport and Intimate Interactions with Online Virtual Advisors

Adopting the view that users perceive their interactions with technological artifacts as social and interpersonal, this paper offers a number of propositions regarding the expected effects of two relationship-level constructs, namely, rapport and intimacy, which have been shown to be influential antecedents to interpersonal relationship satisfaction and interaction quality. Both constructs are proposed to be salient beliefs within the context of users’ interactions with virtual advisors, subsequently, affecting users’ evaluations of these advisors. In addition to offering a conceptualization of these two constructs and their individual dimensions, we also offer a number of propositions in regards to how these two constructs can be influenced using a number of design characteristics that have been discussed in prior literature

The Role of Design Characteristics in Enhancing Social Presence

This paper reports on a study that examined the effects of two design characteristics on enhancing perceptions of an online virtual advisor’s social presence. Anchored in the media richness theory (Daft and Lengel, 1984), we hypothesized, and the results confirmed that the use of expressive speech acts by the virtual advisor significantly enhances perceptions of the advisor’s social presence. On the other hand, the effects of endowing the advisor with a humanoid representation and a human voice failed to reach statistical significance. The results of this study suggest that internal characteristics manifested by the advisor are more influential in affecting perceptions of its social presence

The Role of Design Characteristics in Shaping Perceptions of Similarity: The Case of Online Shopping Assistants

This research proposes that technological artifacts are perceived as social actors, and that users can attribute personality and behavioral traits to them. These formed perceptions interact with the user’s own characteristics to construct an evaluation of the similarity between the user and the technological artifact. Such perceptions of similarity are important because individuals tend to more positively evaluate others, in this case technological artifacts, to whom they are more similar. Using an automated shopping assistant as one type of technological artifact, we investigate two types of perceived similarity between the customer and the artifact: perceived personality similarity and perceived behavioral similarity. We then investigate how design characteristics drive a customer’s perceptions of these similarities and, importantly, the bases for those design characteristics. Decisional guidance and speech act theory provide the basis for personality manifestation, while normative versus heuristic-based decision rules provide the basis for behavioral manifestation. We apply these design bases in an experiment. The results demonstrate that IT design characteristics can be used to manifest desired personalities and behaviors in a technological artifact. Moreover, these manifestations of personality and behavior interact with the customer’s own personality and behaviors to create matching perceptions of personality and behavioral similarity between the customer and the artifact. This study emphasizes the need to consider technological artifacts as social actors and describes the specific ways in which technology design can manifest social attributes. In doing so, we show that it is possible to match the social attributes of a technological artifact with those of the user

Designing Caring and Informative Decision Aids to Increase Trust and Enhance the Interaction Atmosphere

Decision aids have enjoyed extensive use in various domains. While decision aid research and practice have largely focused on making these aids more functional and utilitarian, we propose that one should also purposefully design them as effective interaction partners, especially when one deploys them in contexts that require a “human touch”, such as finance or healthcare. In this paper, we report on the results from an experiment we conducted on the effects that designing caring and informative decision aids have on how users evaluate them and, subsequently, their satisfaction with them. Our results show that using explanations and expressive speech acts can enhance the extent to which users perceive decision aids as informative and caring. These strengthened beliefs subsequently enhance the extent to which users view decision aids as competent and as having integrity and improve the interaction atmosphere, which, in turn, increases users’ satisfaction with their overall interaction with the decision aid. We discuss the study’s contributions to theory and practice

Designing Caring and Informative Decision Aids

The focus in decision aid research and practice has largely been on the utilitarian aspects of their design. We propose that these aids should also be designed as effective social partners, especially when their use involves the exchange of sensitive information. In this paper, we investigate the effects of designing caring and informative decision aids on users’ evaluations of these aids. Our results show that the use of explanations and expressive speech acts can enhance users’ beliefs that the aid is informative and cares about the user. These strengthened beliefs subsequently enhance perceptions of its competence and benevolence, and improve the interaction atmosphere, subsequently increasing satisfaction with the decision aid

Towards Understanding the Formation and Impact of E-service Failures

E-service failure has been the bane of e-commerce by compelling consumers to abandon transactions entirely or to switch to brick-and-mortar establishments. Yet, despite the downsides of e-service failures, there has not been a study to-date that systematically investigates how perceptions of failure arise within online transactional environments and their impacts on consumer behavior. Departing from the multi-attribute utility approach prevalent in conventional consumer research, this study advances a typology of e-service failure from a goal-directed perspective. Assimilating Lee and Ariely’s (2006) shopping goal theory with Van Osselaer et al.’s (2005) classification of consumer goals, it is the contention of this study that when transacting online, consumers are not only motivated to (1) purchase a product suited to their extrinsic requirements (i.e., consumption goals) and personal preferences (i.e., criterion goals) while enjoying the transactional experience (i.e., process goals), but they are also seeking ways to (2) translate what are often elusive intentions into tangible objectives (goal activation) and achieve those objectives in the most efficacious manner (i.e., goal implementation). Consequently, e-service failures can be delineated according to the type of consumer goal (i.e., consumption, criterion or process) they target and the transactional stage (i.e., activation or implementation) at which they occur. A research model of e-service failure is then constructed and testable hypotheses are derived. To empirically validate the model, a 3x3 experimental design is proposed and elaborated. The experiment employs a 3 (Type of Failure: Activation Success + Implementation Failure; Activation Failure + Implementation Failure or Activation Failure + Implementation Success) x 3 (Type of Goal: Consumption; Criterion; or Process) between-subjects factorial design will be conducted. A totally separate control group without any form of e-service deficiency (Activation Success + Implementation Success) across the three goal categories will also be incorporated into the experimental design to contrast differences in consumers’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviors arising from the distinction between the presence and absence of implementation failures given the successful activation of consumer goals. It is anticipated that the empirical findings from our experiment will serve to inform academics and practitioners on: (1) how consumer perceptions of different types of e-service failure manifest on e-commerce websites, and; (2) their impact on transactional attitudes and intentions. Conceptually, our proposed experimental study is designed to not only verify the veracity of our research model, but to also challenge the premise underlying past research into consumer behavior. Theories like the EDT have contended that expectations constructed from previous transactional experiences form the baseline from which consumers assess future transactions. Yet, if we were to establish goal activation as a prerequisite for perceptions of implementation failure to arise, it will imply that while prior transactional experiences might be pertinent in affecting consumer behavior, goals—which are activated through immediate interactions with the e-commerce website—may be a more salient influence. Additionally, the experiment represents an opportunity to validate our typology of e-service failures by demonstrating how they might occur in reality and explaining why each e-service failure type might be more or less effective in affecting online consumer behavior. Pragmatically, empirical findings can offer cautionary advice to practitioners to be vigilant in web interface design so as to avoid activating unwanted goals, especially when the website is ill-equipped to fulfill them. Further, the typology of e-service failures can provide guidelines for practitioners to establish benchmarks for designing error-free e-commerce websites. Finally, this study acts as a pre-requisite to uncovering corresponding e-service recovery mechanisms that can be offered on e-commerce websites to alleviate consumers’ disappointment and feelings of dissatisfaction in the event of e-service failures