The increasing employment of information and communication technologies in companies and households has not only led to considerable changes in the way services are conceived, developed, and delivered, it has altered the nature of services themselves (Bitner, Brown, and Meuter 2000; Meuter et al. 2000). The convergence of technologies such as e-commerce, ubiquitous computing, and mobile communication is emerging as a promising new paradigm with the goal to provide services anytime, everywhere, and transparently to the user via devices embedded in the physical environment. New "intelligent products" contain IT in the form of microchips, software, and sensors and are able to collect, process, and produce information (Rijsdijk, Hultink, and Diamantopoulos 2007). Network technology embedded into such devices allows for connecting these objects to producers and customers enabling automatic identification, localization and remote sensor technologies (Jonsson, Westergren, and Holmström 2008; Lyytinen and Yoo 2002). This poses not only technical, social, and organizational challenges for product producers. It also has a strong impact on possibilities for service provision as the continuous data flow from embedded IT-applications enables seamless services delivered in real time, and directed at connected objects (Fano and Gershman 2002).
New types of technology-mediated services such as e-services, mobile services, self-services, and recently remote services have become reality. In this chapter, these new service types will be defined, and their application in practice and recognition in scientific research will be discussed. This discussion will set the frame of reference for the main objects of this thesis: remote services and interactive remote services. A classification and demarcation will be given, and the unique service experience from a customer's point of view will be examined.
In this research, I use an integrative approach to establish a theoretical framework for remote services and interactive remote services. Within this framework, I relate remote services to the fields of information systems, especially to studies on IT-adoption; to services marketing, in particular to concepts of customer-provider interaction and co-production; to management literature on organizational cooperations; and to concepts stemming from B2B marketing. From a methodological perspective this thesis aims at explaining organizational intention by linking it to perceptions of individual employees as a proxy. Therefore, remote service are related to literature on both individual and organizational behavior. This thesis adds and combines findings from different literature streams to form the theoretical basis for understanding (interactive) remote service perception, acceptance, and continued use.
This thesis employs a mixed-methodological approach that combines qualitative with quantitative research. Both methods are used to complement each other and bridge the gap between exploration, description, and causal inference. Naturally, the methodological superstructure must take the specifics of each research method into account, because they differ in research goals, focus, procedure, data sampling, and analysis.
The qualitative approach taken in this thesis emphasizes discovery over confirmation (Holliday 2008, p. 6) and explores the perception of remote services from a customer's perspective. This study aims to provide insight into relevant individual and situational circumstances that affect the remote service perception. Based on these insights, a comprehensive conceptual framework of factors that influence the perception of remote services is developed. This forms the foundation for the subsequent steps in the research process and allows the relevant constructs to be operationalized in the quantitative study.
In this chapter, I propose three major groups of hypotheses. First, I outline the hypotheses of the Interactive Technology-Mediated Service Usage Model (ITSUM) based on the results of the qualitative interview study (see chapter 5.4.12) and on the findings of prior research in marketing, IS, and management literature (see chapter 3). The ITSUM aims to clarify the causal relationships of the variables and to explain the customer companies' intention to use remote services. Next, I will extend the ITSUM by proposing a link between a company's intention to use interactive remote services and actual usage behavior. In a third step, I present my hypotheses regarding group differences between antecedents of adoption and continued usage of interactive remote services.
In this chapter, I discuss the validation of the ITSUM and present a multi-group comparison to understand organizational intention to use interactive remote services in the pre-adoption phase and in the continuance phase. Moreover, I analyze the link between behavioral intention and actual behavior. The quantitative data offers insights into the relative strength of remote service adoption and continuance drivers as well as their interactions.
This thesis contributes to contemporary research on the use of technology-mediated services by conceptualizing a new emerging service type and by providing insights into factors that determine its organizational usage. The perception and acceptance of remote services have been explored in a B2B-environment and drivers of interactive remote service adoption and continued usage have been identified.
