Self-Service Technologies (SSTs) Acceptance: A Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) Perspective

With the development of technology, more and more companies have introduced self-service technologies (SSTs) into their customer interactions. Firms have introduced SSTs because they can provide their customers with much more efficient service by much less employees. Current studies indicate that actual operation of SSTs is much more difficult than it was expected to be (Bitner, Ostrom & Meuter, 2002). One of the key problems is that not all of the customers are willing to accept the technologies to take the place of the traditional services provided by employees (Bitner, Brown & Meuter, 2000). Thus, understanding those indicators for customers to accept SSTs is a curial way to make SSTs widely adopted (Dabholkar, 1994; Curran & Meuter, 2005). In this study, we examine the SSTs acceptance issue from the perspective of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Based on a literature review of several models of SSTs acceptance, we figure out some indicators for SSTs acceptance intention from the perspective of attitude and perceived behavioral control, respectively. Our derived conceptual framework from TPB explain customers’ intention for SSTs acceptance and our study will provide businesses, who aim to introduce SSTs, with helpful suggestions for SSTs introduction strategies