Technology Acceptance of Connected Services in the Automotive Industry

160 Pages·2009·1.09 MB·English

by  Clemens Hiraoka (auth.)

Clemens Hiraoka
Technology Acceptance of Connected Services
in the Automotive Industry
GABLER RESEARCH
Applied Marketing Science /
Angewandte Marketingforschung
Editorial Board:
Prof. Dr. Dieter Ahlert, Universität Münster
Prof. Dr. Heiner Evanschitzky, University of Strathclyde/UK
Dr. Josef Hesse, Schäper Sportgerätebau GmbH
Prof. Dr. Gopalkrishnan R. Iyer, Florida Atlantic University/USA
Prof. Dr. Hartmut H. Holzmüller, Universität Dortmund
Prof. Dr. Gustavo Möller-Hergt, Technische Universität Berlin
Prof. Dr. Lou Pelton, University of North Texas/USA
Prof. Dr. Arun Sharma, University of Miami/USA
Prof. Dr. Florian von Wangenheim, Technische Universität München
Prof. Dr. David Woisetschläger, Universität Dortmund
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Clemens Hiraoka

Technology Acceptance
of Connected Services
in the Automotive Industry
With a foreword by Prof. Dr. Florian von Wangenheim
RESEARCH
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Dissertation Technische Universität München, 2009
1st Edition 2009
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Foreword
Connected Services constitute a very recent development in many industries and bridge
service and product offerings. In the consumer business, one of the most prominent examples
is “TeleServices” in the automotive industry: through a mobile data connection, diagnoses,
maintenance, and also repair tasks can be performed on the vehicle while being on the road.
Efficiency and security gains for both the driver and the manufacturer of the vehicle make
such services a highly attractive development. Nevertheless, research and also practical
experience on the acceptance and usage of such services is very limited, especially in the B2C
area.
The work of Clemens Hiraoka therefore contributes to the academic and managerial of
technology-intensive services in at least three ways: First, the rich body of technology
acceptance model (TAM) research is analyzed and consequently extended for its application
on Connected Services in B2C. The theoretical framework is expanded to also include the
role of traditional marketing elements such as branding and pricing. Second, this doctoral
dissertation bases all quantitative analyses on a large sample of real customers, with both
motivation and usage data combined. Although the risks associated with self-reported usage
data (common method bias) are well known in research, very few authors are able to address
it as Clemens Hiraoka does in his work, using both attitudinal and behavioral data. From
there, structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to uncover the relevant factors for
accepting and using Connected Services. The dataset also allows comparing consumers over
time, i.e. from being a potential customer to accepting and increasing the usage level to finally
becoming a renewing or canceling customer. Likewise, usage behavior over time and its
influence on retention is shown. The third contribution of this work lies in the holistic and
extensive analysis on the new field of Connected Services, mainly based on the extensive
explorative research. It scrutinizes the entire customer lifecycle and also uncovers the
challenges and importance of customer touchpoints in the Marketing & Sales process – before
the actual decision and acceptance process takes place.
Overall, this work does not only provide an important contribution for the academic and
managerial world. In the project setting with a major automotive OEM as a partner, Clemens
Hiraoka has also shown the value – if not to say the necessity – of partnerships between both
worlds for generating substantial results. This work clearly demonstrates this fruitful synthesis
and should therefore be recommended to any academic fellow and practitioner interested in
technology marketing and service management alike.
Munich, May 16th, 2009 Florian von Wangenheim
Preface
It is now more than twenty years since Fred D. Davis, a doctoral candidate at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published his thesis with a model to predict the
acceptance of technology (Davis 1986). At that time, IT hardware and applications had
moved slowly from isolated computing centers into the offices of white-collar workers of big
corporations. The calculated benefits from efficiency gains were very promising, but very
often companies had to realize that only fractions of the expected benefits of the computers
were realized in daily business. Davis addressed the right questions at the right time –
questions about what factors drive or hinder employees’ intention to leverage technologies at
their work space. Two publications and three years later (Davis 1989; Davis, Bagozzi, and
Warshaw 1989), the technology acceptance model (TAM) not only constituted a reference
model in IS literature, but it established a new stream of research. The goal of this thesis is to
add another contribution to a field of research that Davis began, and which continues despite
the claims of numerous researchers that TAM has been fully developed and cannot be
significantly enriched (Hirschheim 2007 and other articles in this MISQ special issue on
TAM; Venkatesh et al. 2003). Substantial reasons support my conviction that more research
on TAM is justified – indeed, is needed – and that I shall accomplish such research in the
context of this dissertation project.
I strongly believe that research and practice should always enrich and extend each other in
fruitful ways. In my case, the thesis came into existence within a PhD program from a
premium automotive OEM. Within this program, I worked concurrently on relevant
Connected Services projects in daily business and on my research project. Therefore, the
OEM not only stimulated research questions by representing a challenging field to work in,
but also funded and supported this research project in a direct way.
Obviously, my interaction with the OEM relied heavily on work with people who directly
supported my efforts during this time. At the risk of diminishing the help of others, I wish to
highlight three mentors who challenged me, but also encouraged me in the content of my
project and on a personal level. I offer my gratitude to Lars Beulke, Dr. Andreas Heider, and
Axel Möring. Furthermore, I want to thank Simon Euringer, Richard Jacobi, Monika Sippel,
and Dr. Eckard Steinmeier for believing in me and my project. Likewise, I want to mention
Dr. Beate Massmann at the corresponding telematics service provider.
For giving me the time and emotional support necessary for this extended research, I sincerely
thank my wife Barbara.
VIII Disclaimer
As well, two persons from the academic community contributed greatly to the genesis of this
doctoral dissertation. Nancy Wünderlich was always responsive to my questions and served
as an intellectual sparring partner in the context of the research project “ExFeD”. This thesis
project would also not have been possible without the Federal Ministry of Education and
Research (BMBF: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung), which supported the
project "ExFeD - Export ferngelenkter Dienstleistungen" (FKZ 01HQ0553;
http://www.exfed.de, see also (Schumann 2008)). Professor Florian von Wangenheim has
been not only an inspiring and encouraging doctoral advisor, but was an easily approachable
and insightful mentor throughout the process.
I gratefully acknowledge and will long appreciate the efforts of these persons to assist me
with this work.
Clemens Hiraoka

Disclaimer
The author of this dissertation acknowledges every intention to diminish any socially
discriminating language. Nevertheless, ease of readability was of high priority in this work.
Hence, pronouns follow the previously conventional practice of using male terms for
universal conditions (e.g., the consumer searches for products satisfying his demands).
For confidentiality issues, some of the absolute numbers have been transformed to index
figures. Such transformations are mentioned again in the relevant sections. Due to the still
very limited number of players in the market, otherwise common approaches of sanitizing the
real identity of the company were not possible in this case. On the other hand, revealing the
identity allows very specific description of the context which – hopefully – makes the thesis
pmore understandable and interesting to read.
Concise Table of Contents
FOREWORD.........................................................................................................................................................V
PREFACE..........................................................................................................................................................VII
DISCLAIMER..................................................................................................................................................VIII
CONCISE TABLE OF CONTENTS.................................................................................................................IX
TABLE OF CONTENTS....................................................................................................................................XI
LIST OF FIGURES...........................................................................................................................................XV
LIST OF APPENDICES................................................................................................................................XVII
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..........................................................................................................................XIX
1 INTRODUCTION TO CONNECTED SERVICES..................................................................................1
2 SCOPING THE RESEARCH FOCUS THROUGH THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS..................13
3 EXPERIENCING CONNECTED SERVICES IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY......................39
4 FORMING THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK INTO A RESEARCH MODEL.........................69
5 WINNING INSIGHTS FROM QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS................................................79
6 DEVELOPING CONNECTED SERVICES TODAY AND TOMORROW.......................................119
7 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................................................129
8 APPENDIX...............................................................................................................................................143
Table of Contents
FOREWORD.........................................................................................................................................................V
PREFACE..........................................................................................................................................................VII
DISCLAIMER..................................................................................................................................................VIII
CONCISE TABLE OF CONTENTS.................................................................................................................IX
TABLE OF CONTENTS....................................................................................................................................XI
LIST OF FIGURES...........................................................................................................................................XV
LIST OF APPENDICES................................................................................................................................XVII
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..........................................................................................................................XIX
1 INTRODUCTION TO CONNECTED SERVICES..................................................................................1
1.1 “TAM RELOADED” OR WHY IT BECOMES EVER MORE IMPORTANT.........................................................1
1.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE THESIS.........................................................................7
1.3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND THESIS STRUCTURE...........................................................................................9
2 SCOPING THE RESEARCH FOCUS THROUGH THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS..................13
2.1 CONNECTED SERVICES – DEFINITION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND STATE OF AFFAIRS................................13
2.1.1 Services are peculiar products.........................................................................................................13
2.1.2 Self-service technologies.................................................................................................................14
2.1.3 Remote services and objects...........................................................................................................15
2.1.4 Connected Services.........................................................................................................................16
2.2 THEORETICAL BASES OF TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE FROM IS RESEARCH...........................................17
2.2.1 The antecedents TRA and TPB.......................................................................................................18
2.2.2 Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)..........................................................................................19
2.2.3 Technology Acceptance Model 2 (TAM 2)....................................................................................23
2.2.4 Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT).................................................24
2.2.5 Applications of TAM models..........................................................................................................26
2.3 THEORETICAL BASES FROM OTHER RELEVANT RESEARCH STREAMS....................................................27
2.3.1 Branding from marking to marketing..............................................................................................27
2.3.2 Hedonic and utilitarian usage motivations......................................................................................30
2.3.3 Pricing transparency and fairness....................................................................................................31
2.3.4 Loyalty as a potential outcome of usage.........................................................................................33
2.4 CRITICAL GAPS IN THE LITERATURE AND THE NEED FOR FURTHER RESEARCH......................................35
3 EXPERIENCING CONNECTED SERVICES IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY......................39
3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN OF THE QUALITATIVE ASPECTS...............................................................................39
3.2 AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY AS RESEARCH OBJECT....................................................................................40
XII Table of Contents
3.3 CASE STUDY BMW CONNECTEDDRIVE...............................................................................................42
3.3.1 Product offering..............................................................................................................................43
3.3.2 Development within the telematics market.....................................................................................45
3.3.3 Trends and outlook..........................................................................................................................47
3.3.4 Behavioral customer segmentation.................................................................................................49
3.3.5 Individual customer traits for technology acceptance.....................................................................50
3.4 CASE STUDY BMW TELESERVICES.....................................................................................................53
3.4.1 Use cases, motivations, and success factors in B2C........................................................................53
3.4.2 Telematics in B2B for commercial vehicles...................................................................................56
3.5 CASE STUDY BMW PERSONAL RADIO (PROTOTYPE)...........................................................................58
3.6 CROSS-CASE STUDY COMPARISON, OR WHAT IT ALL MEANS TO TAUM...............................................61
3.7 APOSTILLE: MARKETING & SALES OF COMPLEX TECHNOLOGY-BASED PRODUCTS AND SERVICES.......62
4 FORMING THE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK INTO A RESEARCH MODEL.........................69
4.1 BRIDGING THEORY AND PRACTICE INTO A RESEARCH MODEL..............................................................69
4.2 RATIONALE FOR PROPOSED MODEL FACTORS.......................................................................................70
4.2.1 Perceived usefulness.......................................................................................................................70
4.2.2 Perceived criticalness......................................................................................................................70
4.2.3 Perceived ease of use.......................................................................................................................71
4.2.4 Technology readiness and innovation valuation.............................................................................71
4.2.5 Prestige............................................................................................................................................72
4.2.6 Perceived enjoyment.......................................................................................................................73
4.2.7 Brand reputation of OEM and Connected Services.........................................................................73
4.2.8 Technology hedonism.....................................................................................................................74
4.2.9 Price transparency and fairness.......................................................................................................75
4.2.10 Attitude and satisfaction.............................................................................................................75
4.3 HYPOTHESIS ON (MULTI) GROUP DIFFERENCES.....................................................................................76
5 WINNING INSIGHTS FROM QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS................................................79
5.1 DATA ACQUISITION AND PREPARATION METHODOLOGY......................................................................79
5.2 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF THE SAMPLE.............................................................................................82
5.2.1 “The” average Connected Services customer..................................................................................82
5.2.2 Findings on key survey elements....................................................................................................83
5.3 KEY ANALYSES OF ACTUAL USAGE DATA.............................................................................................85
5.4 FUNDAMENTALS OF STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODELING....................................................................92
5.5 MODELING TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE FOR NONUSERS.......................................................................93
5.5.1 Data preparation..............................................................................................................................93
5.5.2 Deriving a factor structure...............................................................................................................94
5.5.3 Confirming the factor structure.......................................................................................................99
5.5.4 Model validation and results.........................................................................................................101