An empirical study on the adoption of information appliances with a focus on interactive TV

Abstract

Home-style information appliances are expected to increase in number and variety rapidly in the near future. User adoption of new technology for information appliances may be different from adoption of other technologies in that the appliances are mainly used at home by consumers who have never encountered such technology before.

We developed a theoretical model of technology adoption specific to interactive TV, a representative example of information appliances, based on prior research regarding general technology acceptance. We also conducted a large-scale online survey to test the validity of the proposed model. The results from pretest and pilot studies indicated that measures for the proposed model met content validity, reliability and construct validity. Finally, results from LISREL analysis indicated that three factors influencing behavioral intention were attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Attitude was influenced by attitudinal belief, which could be measured by perceived usefulness, trialability, result demonstrability, image and enjoyment. Subjective norm was influenced by normative belief, which could be measured by belief from family and belief from friends. Perceived behavioral control was influenced by control belief, which could be measured by rapidity of change in technology, cost and ease of use. This paper concludes with statements of implications and limitations of the study results.

Introduction

The environment for information technology is changing from focus on the personal computer (PC) to the post-PC era (Bergman, 2000; Hennessy, 1999). The post-PC era implies that accessing information no longer means sitting in front of a computer screen, but carrying out this process at any time in any place through the use of a wide variety of platforms (Norman, 1998). For example, it will be possible to look up the perfect recipe and lay it out in front of you in your home kitchen by connecting to the Internet using a platform installed in your refrigerator. Or you will be able to watch TV from the comfort of your couch and at the same time purchase the costume of the star you are viewing at that very moment.

Computer devices that make possible information activities by adding network functions to home appliances are referred to “information appliances” (Norman, 1998; Mohageg and Wagner, 2000). Using a definition of “appliance” as a tool designed to perform special services in the home environment, Norman defined the information appliance as a specialized appliance conveying information, including for example knowledge, photos, movies or sound (Norman, 1998). Based on the definition of a traditional appliance, Mohageg and Wagner suggested that an information appliance is an extended computer device that can enable a user efficiently to carry out a limited series of activities (Mohageg and Wagner, 2000). Within such parameters, Lewis defined the information appliance as a networking appliance or a computerized appliance Lewis, 1998.

Among the many available information appliances, interactive TV is representative since it utilizes a network added to a TV, which is the representative form of the home appliance. For example, Vos defined interactive TV as a home television with interactive functions in which the TV meets interactive technology (Vos, 2000). At Independent Television Commissions (ITC), interactive TV was defined as a service that allows the user to select all available information and enables one to ‘pull’ the selected information at any desired time in terms of the contents a person wishes to see and also in terms of control levels regarding viewing time (2000). Therefore, interactive TV can be characterized as a representative information appliance using interactive service through a network.

Many experts take a very optimistic view of the growth capability of the interactive TV industry (e.g., Kim, 2001a, Kim, 2001b, Kim, 2001c; O’Brien, 2001). The domestic market size in Korea is estimated to be 0.2 million in 2001, 0.4 million in 2002, and over 2.5 million in 2005 (Kim, 2001a, Kim, 2001b, Kim, 2001c). In addition, the international market is expected to achieve continuous high growth in the range of 22 million in 2001, 88 million in 2003, and 259 million in 2005 (O’Brien, 2001). This expectation matches research results from Strategy Analytics, which show that 38 million people in the world will use interactive TV by year 2003 and 265 million by year 2005 (O’Brien, 2001).

Although interactive TV has a strong potential to be the representative information appliance of the future, Internet TV, a predecessor of interactive TV, have failed in the market (Kim, 2001a, Kim, 2001b, Kim, 2001c). Internet TV was a service that allowed people to use the Internet through a set-top box connected to a traditional TV (Kim, 2001a, Kim, 2001b, Kim, 2001c). It has been argued that Internet TV was not accepted by users because its marketers did not understand what users wanted from the new technology. This experience carries implications that, if the way consumers accept a technology is not well understood beforehand, even a great technology and an innovative product can easily fail in the real world.

In particular, users behave with motives different from those regarding existing technologies in that an information appliance involves the advent of a technology which has never before appeared and in that it must be accepted not in business circumstances but in the home surroundings. What affects a user’s technology adoption behavior has been much studied in the field of management information systems (Adams et al., 1992; Chang and Cheung, 2001; Davis, 1989; Karahanna et al., 1999; Segars and Grover, 1993; Venkatesh, 2001), in marketing (Babin et al., 1994; Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982; Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982), in social psychology (Fazio et al., 1982; Zanna and Rempel, 1988), and in organizational behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). However, a scientific study that suggests an appropriate technology adoption model reflecting all the features of a home appliance that has not entered into use has never before been conducted. Lack of study specific to the information appliance is detrimental to the potential market success of interactive TV, since interactive TV has many features that differ from office computers used for general business purposes. First, information appliances are different from existing information technologies usually utilized in the business environment because such information appliances are mostly used arbitrarily in the home environment. In such a situation, the use of information appliances must be enjoyable and pleasant in addition to being effective and efficient (Babin et al., 1994). Second, the population group that has impact on the adoption decision is not a commercial or institutional organization such as a company or school, but friends and family at home (Randolph, 1999). Friends and family that are formed within any social system is quite different from an organization formed for purposes of profit and managerial efficiency. Finally, because of spending priorities and their relationship to information appliances in the home economy, it is very important to consider cost and risk factors regarding purchase of information appliances (Venkatesh, 2001). Thus, because information appliances differ from existing information technologies in the above three important ways, and because people have different behavioral intentions regarding different technologies, the adoption behavior toward information appliances will appear unlike existing adoption behavior toward technology in general (Yang and Choi, 2001). It is necessary to understand these differences clearly in order to help concretely in the process of developing interactive TV technology and its marketing by manufacturers. In order to make the differences more explicit, our research model includes the elements presented by Venkatesh (2001) that were found to influence technology acceptance in home environment and those presented by Karahanna et al. (1999) that were also found to influence perceived behavioral control.

Our main research question is what the critical factors are for people to adopt Interactive TV. We believe that Interactive TV may have different critical factors compared to conventional information systems because it is mainly used in home environment and it has never been used before. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to propose a new technology adoption model that can be adapted for the potential user in home circumstances, with a focus on interactive TV. To attain this objective, a new model specific to interactive TV adoption behavior was proposed based on prior research in information systems and marketing. The newly proposed model was then verified empirically through a survey of potential users of interactive TV. We also provided practical implications regarding what factors must be focused upon in order to influence the behavioral intention of a user’s adoption of the technology when a new home appliance is developed and presented in the marketplace.

This paper consists of four sections. The first section explains briefly the information appliance and interactive TV. The second section describes the theoretical background of the technology adoption model. The following section explains the procedures and results of the survey. Finally, this paper ends with a discussion of the results of our research.