The antecedents of post-initial adoption behavior in a S-D logic context: leveraging the power of the viral metaphor to advance service innovation adoption
Repercussions of innovation adoption and diffusion studies have long been imperative to the
success of novel introductions. However, perceptions and deductions of current innovation
understandings have been changing over time. The paradigm shift from the goods-dominant
(G-D) logic to the service-dominant (S-D) logic potentially makes the distinction between
product (goods) innovation and service innovation redundant as the S-D logic lens views all
innovations as service innovations (Vargo and Lusch, 2004; 2008; Lusch and Nambisan,
2015). From this perspective, product innovations are in essence service innovations, as goods
serve as mere distribution mechanisms to deliver service. Nonetheless, the transition to such a
broadened and transcending view of service innovation necessitates concurrently a change in
the underlying models used to investigate innovation and its subsequent adoption. The present
research addresses this gap by engendering a novel model for the most crucial period of
service diffusion within the S-D logic context – the post-initial adoption phase, which
demarcates an individual’s behavior after the initial adoption decision of a service. As a wellfounded
understanding of service diffusion and the complementary innovation adoption still
lingers in its infancy, the current study develops a model based on interdisciplinary domains
mapping. Here fore, knowledge of the relatively established viral source domain is mapped to
the comparatively undetermined target domain of service innovation adoption.
To assess the model and test the importance of the explanatory variables, survey data from
750 respondents of a bank in Northern Germany is scrutinized by means of Structural
Equation Modeling (SEM). The findings reveal that the continuance intention of a customer,
actual usage of the service and the customer influencer value all constitute important postinitial
adoption behavior that have meaningful implications for a successful service adoption.
Second, the four constructs customer influencer value, organizational commitment, perceived
usefulness and service customization are evidenced to have a differential impact on a
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customer’s post-initial adoption behavior. Third, this study indicates that post-initial adoption
behavior further underlies the influence of a user’s age and besides that is also provoked by
the internal and external environments of service adoption.
Finally, this research amalgamates the broad view of service innovation by Nambisan and
Lusch (2015) with the findings ensuing this enquiry’s model to arrive at a framework that it
both, generalizable and practically applicable. Implications for academia and practitioners are
captured along with avenues for future research