Consumer Adoption in Technological Context: Conceptualization, Scale Development and Validation

Abstract

Consumer adoption’ is a rich concept, which is far beyond merely purchase of a product. Literature presents different psychological as well as behavioural components of adoption however, there have been found a lack of integration between them and consensus is yet to emerge regarding the concrete blend of its constituents. The study dealt with the conceptualisation of the term ‘consumer adoption’ in technological context. The construct was operationalized and consequently, an empirically tested comprehensive scale of ‘technology adoption’ was developed. The initial phase of the scale development process comprised of item generation, refinement, pre-testing and exploratory factor analysis while the advanced stage incorporated confirmatory factor analysis. The scale was validated on the basis of systematic authentication of measurement and structural model. The study resulted into construction of a nine-item scale of ‘technology adoption’ comprising three factors namely ‘acceptance’, full-scale usage’ and embracement’. Further, the resultant factors served the basis for development of an ‘operational definition’ of adoption.