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Abstract
We investigate how information and communication technology (ICT) service providers can win back disadopters of an earlier generation of technology when a new technology generation appears on the market. Integrating prior research on consumers’ defensive bias, knowledge accessibility, diffusion of innovation, and technology adoption, we developed a model to predict disadopters’ intention to readopt a technology. We postulate that the primary reason for disadoption moderates the impacts of both the drivers of readoption (perceived superiority, effort expectancy, price value of the new technology generation, and social influence) and the characteristics of prior usage experience with the disadopted earlier technology generation (duration of disadoption, tenure with the old generation, and usage intensity of the old generation) on readoption intention. We tested our technology readoption model in the context of mobile Internet services. Data were collected from 274 disadopters of an earlier generation of mobile Internet services before the advent of the third generation (3G) technology. The results supported most of our hypotheses. These findings have significant theoretical and practical implications, especially for firms interested in winning back technology disadopters. Finally, we present an agenda for further research into technology readoption.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the three anonymous reviewers and the Editor-in-Chief for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Funding
This project was partially funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (SBI12BM15, SBI13BM04) and the Tongyi Industrial Group Center for Electronic Commerce at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Notes
1. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAP.
4. See www.techradar.com/news/portable-devices/the-5-rubbish-wearables-that-actually-make-google-glass-look-cool-1247061/2/; and www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/why-does-microsoft-passport-suck/30/.
6. In this study, we refer to prior experience with the technology as knowledge about past interactions with the technology and use them interchangeably in the text.
7. While our pilot study and the formal survey did not indicate the significant role of compatibility as an innovation characteristic in the context of the readoption of mobile Internet services, incompatibility in general may be another primary reason for disadoption. We acknowledge the limitation of not including incompatibility as one of the reasons for disadoption and call for future research on this issue.
8. To avoid redundancy, we use the short forms of the variable names in this study wherever possible. In particular, readoption refers to “readoption of the new technology generation”; duration of disadoption refers to “duration of disadoption of the old technology generation”; tenure refers to “tenure with the old technology generation”; usage intensity refers to “usage intensity of the old technology generation”; perceived superiority refers to “perceived superiority of the new technology generation”; effort expectancy refers to “effort expectancy of the new technology generation”; social influence refers to “social influence regarding readopting the new technology generation”; and perceived price value refers to “perceived price value of the new technology generation.”
9. As the number of mobile Internet services is relatively limited on 2G and 2.5G mobile Internet, we believe that the accuracy of the respondents’ estimates of usage frequency is reasonable.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Xin Xu
Xin Xu ([email protected]) is an associate professor in the Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He received his Ph.D. in information systems from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include IT innovation management, social media analytics, Internet of Things, and human–computer interaction. His work has appeared in Management Science, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Journal of the AIS, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. He serves as associate editor for MIS Quarterly.
James Y.L. Thong
James Y.L. Thong ([email protected]; corresponding author) is chair professor and head of the Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics, and Operations Management in the School of Business and Management at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He received his Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore. His research on technology adoption and implementation, e-government, human–computer interaction, information privacy, software piracy, and IT in small business has appeared in Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, and Journal of the AIS. He is a senior editor of MIS Quarterly and an AIS Fellow. Previously, he served as associate editor for Information Systems Research and MIS Quarterly, and received the “2011 ISR Best Associate Editor” award.
Kar Yan Tam
Kar Yan Tam ([email protected]) is dean of the School of Business and Management and chair professor in the Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics, and Operations Management at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His current research interests include business analytics, fintech, social media, and human–computer interface. His publications have appeared in Journal of Management Information Systems, Information Systems Research, Management Science, and MIS Quarterly. He serves on the editorial boards of several information systems journals. He has extensive consulting experience with major corporations and government agencies.