How can autonomy improve consumer experience when interacting with smart products?
Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing
ISSN: 2040-7122
Article publication date: 3 December 2021
Issue publication date: 25 January 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This paper analyzes the direct and indirect effects of the autonomy of smart home speakers on consumer experience, weighing its benefits and costs in the following areas: usefulness, interactivity, coolness, service failure severity and intrusiveness. Experience value is examined as an antecedent of repurchase intention.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling is applied to data collected from 607 users of smart home speakers. Mediating effects are examined between autonomy and experience value.
Findings
Autonomy has no direct effect on experience value, since the positive effect is fully mediated by interactivity, intrusiveness, perceived usefulness and coolness. Failure severity has no mediating effect and has no influence on experience value. Usefulness, coolness and interactivity show positive mediating effects between autonomy and experience value, while intrusiveness has a negative mediating effect. The better the consumer's experience response, the greater the repurchase intention.
Practical implications
Companies should highlight the benefits (interactivity, usefulness and coolness) and attempt to reduce the costs (intrusiveness) associated with smart device autonomy. Firms can use these aspects to increase the rate of smart-device adoption.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the interactive research literature by empirically examining the mediating effect of interactivity and coolness. Additionally, this research offers evidence of the full mediation effect of usefulness, interactivity, coolness and intrusiveness. Finally, this research shows that failure severity is not always important and that it can be context specific.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their gratitude for the valuable comments received from the editor, associate editor and reviewers. Additionally, the authors wish to express their gratitude for financial support received from MINECO (ECO2017-83993-P) from the Grant PID2020-114874GB-I00 funding by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033, the funding received from the Government of Aragón and the European Social Fund (GENERES Group S-54_20R) and the Grants for Young Researchers offered by University of Zaragoza and Ibercaja (JIU-2018-SOC-08).
Citation
Lucia-Palacios, L. and Pérez-López, R. (2023), "How can autonomy improve consumer experience when interacting with smart products?", Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 19-37. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIM-02-2021-0031
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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