Abstract
As companies race to digitize physical-based service processes repackaging them as online e-services, it becomes increasingly important to understand how consumers perceive the digitized e-service alternative. We theorize that consumers often perceive e-services as being artificial and non-authentic, and that consumers must perform this assessment when deciding whether new e-services are viable alternatives to traditional service methods. This research investigates whether consumer perceptions of artificiality increase perceptions of e-service risk, which has been shown to hamper consumer acceptance in a variety of online settings. An empirical study operationalized perceived artificiality (PA) within a controlled laboratory experiment that manipulated the risk of a specific e-service class (e-payments). For a specific e-service brand, PA is reduced when the web interface is viewed as easy to use; alternatively, PA is increased when consumers have relatively high risk perceptions about the overall e-service class. Furthermore, consumers who were rated as information technology innovators had lower overall artificiality perceptions, however, exposure to negatively framed e-service efficacy information removed this artificiality reducing effect. The theoretical linkages between PA and perceived risk, and the two antecedents - ease of use and e-service class risk - were confirmed by survey results. The implications of these results for future research as well as the design and marketing of e-services are examined.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 107-134 |
Number of pages | 28 |
Journal | Information Systems Journal |
Volume | 16 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 2006 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Artificiality
- Authenticity
- Perceived risk
- Virtuality
- e-commerce
- e-service
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Software
- Information Systems
- Computer Networks and Communications