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This paper aims to describe the effects of the Dutch policy program the Library at School on primary school pupils’ leisure book reading and attitude towards reading books, in the first year of the nationwide implementation of the program.Design/methodology/approach – In monitoring the effectiveness of the Library at School, online questionnaires were administered to students (grades 2‐6), teachers and reading‐media consultants. The study is based on data collected in the school year 2011‐2012 from a sample of 4,682 students from 229 classes, with 284 teachers of 68 schools.

Multilevel regression analyses show that effects of the Library at School on reading attitude and leisure reading cannot yet be discerned in 2011‐2012, although slightly positive univariate effects are found.

As yet, the number of participating schools is limited, hence statistical power is low on that level. Whether the sample can be considered representative for all Dutch primary schools is not certain.

The findings suggest that a school library in itself is not sufficient to promote book reading in leisure time. The role of the reading‐media consultant in facilitating both teachers and learners might have to be strengthened.

This study gives a first glimpse at the effects of the program the Library at School on the reading attitude and leisure reading of primary school students in The Netherlands. The continuous monitoring approach employed is new and can be helpful for similar policy programs in other countries.

Electronic books (e-books) have been in the market for decades but have been unable to replace paper books. Previous studies on e-books have failed to identify significant factors affecting the adoption and diffusion of e-books. This study develops a theoretical framework to explain the adoption behavior of e-books from the perspective of user resistance.

After a pilot test with 50 e-book users, the research model is validated using a partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique. A web-based survey method is used to collect data from a sample of 350 people – selected from Korean e-book users and nonusers – during a week in March 2017. This study tests the reliability and validity of the integrated model of planned behavior and resistance theory and tests the hypotheses with bootstrapping resampling.

The results show that four barriers – usage, value, risk and image – cause resistance to change and users with higher resistance have lower intention to use. The moderating effect of self-efficacy between resistance to change and intention to use is confirmed. Self-efficacy interacts not only with the encouraging factors but also with resistance.

This study expands the understanding of users' adoption behavior of e-books by examining inhibiting factors using a novel integrated model. The findings of this research provide insights for digital product providers, especially e-book publishers, to understand why digital products have not been successful in the marketplace.

Notwithstanding a significant amount of literature on the technology acceptance model (TAM), past research has overlooked the role consumers' technology readiness (TR) plays in adoption of self‐service technologies (SSTs). This study aims to fill this research gap by developing and testing a model that integrates the role of TR into the TAM.

The study proposes a research framework to suggest the direct and moderating roles of TR in the TAM. Extant research from various research streams is reviewed, resulting in 13 hypotheses. Data collected from customers with SST experiences are examined through structural equation modeling (SEM) and hierarchical moderated regression analysis.

Results indicate that customer TR enhances perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude toward use, and intention to use. Results also show that TR attenuates the positive relationship between perceived ease of use and attitude toward using SSTs.

This research represents an early attempt to explain the role of TR in the TAM in the context of SSTs. Future research directions are discussed, with emphasis on incorporating customer differences and situational factors to better understand this model in various service settings.

Findings show that TR influences perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude toward using SSTs, and behavioral intentions. Therefore, to achieve better SST service outcomes firms implementing SSTs should give increased attention to customer TR. Firms should stimulate the use of technological services by strengthening positive TR drivers (the optimism and innovativeness dimensions) to encourage use of technological services and positive attitudes toward technology, while also reducing TR inhibitors (the discomfort and insecurity dimensions) to lower reluctance to use technology.

This study is the first to integrate the role of TR into the TAM in the context of SSTs.

Open banking, with its promise to revolutionise electronic transactions through open application programming interfaces (APIs), aims to bridge the gap between banks and non-banks, enhancing lending, payments, investments and funds distribution. However, does this bold innovation truly resonate with consumers? This study delves into consumer intentions to adopt open banking in Indonesia by leveraging the technology readiness model, scrutinising its antecedents and moderating factors, and identifying the key attributes that users anticipate.

Through quantitative and qualitative approaches, this study answers the following questions: (1) Are financial service users ready to use open banking/open API applications? (2) What are the key attributes that consumer expects of open banking/open API? First, the authors developed a structural model based on the technology readiness model, distributed the questionnaire in eight major cities in Indonesia, analysed it using PLS-SEM and utilised a machine learning approach to unpack the main attributes expected from open banking.

This study’s findings indicate that customers are generally prepared to embrace open banking innovations. Nonetheless, to enhance public acceptance, certain factors should be emphasised, including organisational support, user-friendly technology, a comprehensive range of features, consumer financial literacy and banks' readiness to adopt open banking. In contrast to prior research, this study reveals that loyalty to traditional banking positively moderates the connection between customer value and the intention to utilise open banking. Additionally, the authors did not observe a significant moderating effect of financial literacy on the relationship between perceived customer value and the intention to use open banking.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the few that comprehensively analyses the consumers' readiness for open banking in developing contexts. This study is expected to produce a theoretical contribution as well as effective and optimal policies for the financial services sector.

Autonomous technologies represent an increasingly important, but at the same time controversial technological field with enormous potential. From a consumer perspective, however, the growing autonomy of technologies might result in a perceived loss of control, which can lead to consumer resistance. Given the practical and theoretical relevance, this research examines antecedents to consumer adoption of autonomous technologies in the context of self-driving cars.

This article looks through the lens of the technology acceptance model and conducts structural equation modeling.

The study validates the positive effect of perceived usefulness on behavioral intention to adopt self-driving cars. The results further suggest that individuals with a generally negative attitude toward technologies are afraid that they might not be capable of handling the new technology. Moreover, further mediation analyses reveal that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness help us to explain the indirect effects of novelty seeking and technology anxiety on adoption intention.

The results imply that users' perceptions of an autonomous technology's usefulness are an important determinant of technology adoption. Adoption barriers could be overcome by emphasizing the usability of the new technology. On the other hand, individuals who enjoy using the old technology may be persuaded by arguments that focus on the usefulness of the new technology rather than its ease of use.

Self-driving automobiles will change our perception of mobility. It is important to understand the mechanisms that drive the adoption of such innovations.

This study explains and predicts smartwatch adoption trends among non-users of smartwatches based on theories of the diffusion of innovation and inertia. It explores the impact of satisfaction with the status-quo with traditional wristwatches, on attitudes toward smartwatches and intentions to adopt the technology.

The study used PLS-SEM to conduct a multi-group analysis considering high (HSQS) and low (LSQS) status-quo satisfaction groups. The multi-group analysis followed the MICOM procedure, and the software SmartPLS three was used to analyse the data.

The results suggest that attitudes of the LSQS group were more strongly impacted by perceived ease of use and trialability. Their attitude toward innovation also had a stronger effect on their adoption intention. For the HSQS group, social influence more strongly impacted adoption intention; this group also perceived the disruption associated with an innovation as greater than the LSQS group. Analysis using PLS-Predict indicated that both models have considerable predictive power.

Most scholarship on this subject has taken a positive view of the diffusion and adoption of smartwatches. This study considers smartwatches from positive and inhibitory perspectives. In the context of smartwatches, this is the first scholarly attempt at comparing levels of resistance to innovation adoption to consumer satisfaction with the status quo.

Consumers are increasingly connected to, and make use of, a multitude of technologies in their daily lives. The exponential growth in the use of Internet of Things (IoT)-based services is ushering in a new era of e-services, in which the service experience is becoming autonomous (intelligence), devices are intercommunicating (connectivity) and consumers can access the service anytime, anywhere and using any device (ubiquity). However, a number of challenges have arisen. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that reduce consumer resistance to smart services (factors against resistance) and factors that promote this resistance (factors for resistance), by means of a dual-factor approach.

To test this theoretical model, the authors developed a Web-based survey and used structural equation modeling.

Results show that consumer-lifestyle factors (individual “mobiquity” and self-image congruence) reduce consumer resistance to smart services (factors against resistance). Conversely, innovation-related factors (perceived security, perceived complexity) and ecosystem-related factors (perceived government surveillance and general skepticism toward IoT) promote consumer resistance to smart services (factors for resistance). In addition, general skepticism toward IoT has a significant positive effect on perceived complexity, perceived security risk and perceived government surveillance.

This research investigates consumer resistance to smart services using a dual-factor perspective (Cenfetelli, 2004; Claudy et al., 2015): factors reducing resistance versus factors promoting resistance. This paper provides evidence for the importance of consumer lifestyle-related factors, innovation-related factors and ecosystem-related factors in explaining consumer resistance to smart services. This work enriches previous studies of consumer resistance to innovation (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Ram, 1987) by studying original variables (individual mobiquity, technological innovativeness, government surveillance).

The purpose of this paper is to observe consumers’ attitudes toward and intentions to purchase green products on social media and to explore the relationships among social media marketing, perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE), product knowledge, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, price consciousness and attitudes toward and intentions to purchase green products. In addition, this research attempts to further understand these relationships in different consumer groups.

A questionnaire survey method was used to collect data from consumers in China. The Amos 22.0 software package was used to conduct the data analysis.

The empirical results suggest that attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control positively affect purchase intentions, while price consciousness negatively affects purchase intentions. Product knowledge positively affects consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions, and PCE positively affects consumers’ attitudes. As expected, social media marketing positively affects subjective norms, product knowledge and PCE and negatively affects price consciousness. However, there is no significant relationship between PCE and purchase intentions. According to the results of multigroup structural equation modeling analysis, the effects differ significantly among different consumer groups.

This study enriches the research about the factors that influence consumers’ purchases of green products in emerging countries in the social media marketing context.

Measurement scales for sensory experience in retailing exist for sight, touch and sound. In the present study, the authors aim to develop the olfactory experience (OEX) scale in the context of retailing.

Based on literature review and six studies that follow standard scale development protocols (combined n = 1,203), the authors develop and validate a three-dimensional OEX scale. The scale is further validated in the final study in a different market set-up than the first five.

The authors found the three dimensions of OEX as (scent) company, congeniality and congruity. The OEX scale is found to be generalizable and valid across different cultural and market set-ups. In addition, the OEX (i.e. the scale) was found to effect psychological and behavioral outcomes of the consumer in a significant manner.

The present study contributes to the domain of sensory experience in retailing with the OEX scale and provides three new dimensions of OEX for the academicians to further explore.

The OEX scale provides a ready to use tool for the retailer to gauge the level of OEX in the store and to predict consumer attitudes and behavior.

The study is the first to develop a scale for OEX in retailing or for that matter in consumer behavior.

Customer feedback is believed to provide an important retailer metric. Notwithstanding, customer retention still presents a challenge in today’s increasingly digitalised business environment. The insurance industry has recently begun its digitalisation process and is struggling with customer retention. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the recurrent trends in the academic discourse surrounding this topic.

This narrative review has documented journal publications from January 2000 to February 2018, using the PRISMA statement. The Web of Science and SCOPUS databases were examined for prior studies of digitalisation and customer loyalty in an insurance setting.

The most recurrent themes were those deemed to be of most interest to the wider academic community and in greatest need of additional research. Expressed as a “conditional statement” this is summarised as: “IF [most recurring] THEN [need for further research]”. Most articles were published in UK-based journals, with most first authors listed in the USA as their country of origin. The articles most commonly discussed the need for “Proactive retention”, i.e. taking pre-emptive action to secure customer loyalty. This exposes a gap with extant theories on customer loyalty/customer retention, which favours customer feedback as an important metrics.

The articles investigated were not ranked beyond mentioning the number of publications found in each respective journal, as to determine any distinguishable patterns of publication.

The need for studies on “Proactive retention” is likely desirable also in other areas than insurance.

The study exposes a gap in extant theory, which mostly discusses retention from a posteriori knowledge. However, most examined literature is actually calling for a priori knowledge.