Exploring Consumers’ Adoption of Highly Technological Fashion Products: The Role of Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivational Factors By: Kittichai Watchravesringkan,

Purpose – This study seeks to develop and test a model of consumers' adoption of highly technological fashion products (HTFPs) through modifying the technology acceptance model (TAM). Design/methodology/approach – Using a convenience sampling method, students between 18 to 26 years old were chosen as the sample population from a mid-size southern university in the USA. The final sample consisted of 268 responses. Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis were employed to answer all hypotheses using the structural equation model. Findings – Empirical results revealed that consumers' intentions to adopt an innovation (i.e. highly technological fashion product) are driven by the multi-dimensional nature of consumers' extrinsic (i.e. perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness) and intrinsic (i.e. perceived innovativeness and perceived fashionability) motivation. Additionally, these motivational dimensions contribute to consumers' utilitarian and hedonic attitudes toward using an innovation, which in turn affects their purchase intentions. Practical implications – Consumers' utilitarian and hedonic consumer attitudes may enable retailers and marketers to design effective advertising campaigns by helping them to determine whether the functional or sensational components of the product need to be emphasized. Furthermore, when developing a new product, marketers need to focus on product attributes that possess both functionality and hedonic benefits. Originality/value – This is the first known study to examine the underlying relationships between motivations, two-dimensional consumers' attitudes (utilitarian and hedonic), and purchase intentions in the consumer-related product context. The study has broadened the TAM by integrating extrinsic and intrinsic motivational variables into the model. It has also deepened the TAM by conceptualizing consumers' attitudes as comprising two distinct dimensions: utilitarian and hedonic. Article: A significantly increased number of domestic and foreign firms, a spate of mergers and acquisitions, and increasingly sophisticated and demanding consumers have intensified the competition among retailers, creating considerable challenges for many to differentiate themselves by delivering products and services that fulfill customers' needs better than their competitors. These changes in the competitive retail landscape have motivated some retailers to enter into strategic alliances, defined as “a cooperative arrangement between two or more independent firms that exchange or share resources for competitive advantage” (Huang et al., 2006, p. 1216), in which collaboration between two or more firms may have synergized them, generating a greater effect on a product's success (e.g. adoption) than that of an individual firm alone. As such, many distinctive products and services are created in an attempt by these participating firms to differentiate themselves from their competitors and thereby communicate the competitive strengths of their goods to consumers. Such an approach has been widely adopted by several firms in the retail market. For instance, LG Telecom, the world's leading electronic company, recently collaborated with Prada, a luxury apparel brand, to create the “Prada Mobile Phone,” a high-tech, buttonless, touch screen cellular phone with a distinctive, fashionable design (Ramstad and Fowler, 2007). This collaboration between LG and Prada enhanced the product's strengths through the combination of high-tech elements and a fashionable appearance that may attract consumers. Although similar collaborative strategies seem to be well-accepted among participating firms, little is known on the consumer level whether these products and services affect consumers' attitudes and behavioral intentions in the way these firms anticipate. This phenomenon of new product development has gained significant interest among academics and practitioners who wish to learn what motivates consumers to adopt or not adopt a new product. While previous studies related to consumers' adoption of new products have been largely examined from the innovativeness perspective (Hirunyawipada and Paswan, 2006), other research suggests that motivation plays an important role in predicting a person's behavior (Bruner and Kumar, 2005; Davis et al., 1992). This study therefore seeks to develop and test a model of consumers' adoption of highly technological fashion products (HTFPs) through modifying the technology acceptance model (TAM). In addition, the proposed TAM-based model also incorporates the hedonic components of consumer motivation (i.e. perceived innovativeness and perceived fashionability) that have been reported as important factors in the development of a consumer product adoption model (e.g. Bruner and Kumar, 2005; Dabholkar and Bagozzi, 2002). The proposed model also incorporates the two-dimensional component of consumer attitudes (i.e. utilitarian and hedonic) to better understand consumers' adoption of new products. These utilitarian and hedonic consumer attitudes are important because of their predictive ability of consumers' behavior (Batra and Ahtola, 1990; Voss et al., 2003). The current study focuses on college-aged or “generation Y” consumers because they tend to be high-tech and fashion-savvy. This generation is a prime market for high-tech, fashionable products and services because of this group's great spending power, over $170 billion a year (Solomon, 2007). In addition, these individuals are likely to seek immediacy and instant gratification when consuming products and services. They are early adopters and active users of technological fashion products (Roberts, 2006). Therefore, it is important to study their attitudes and consumption patterns regarding this new trend. The current study contributes to the existing literature in several ways. Theoretically, the study applies and extends the TAM to study consumers' adoption of a continuously innovative product. In addition, conceptualizing consumer attitudes as a two-dimensional construct (i.e. utilitarian and hedonic) may better explain a greater proportion of variance in the consumer behavior research model. Managerially, external variables investigated under the current study (i.e. perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived innovativeness, and perceived fashionability) might aid one in better understanding consumers' adoption of a new product. These four external variables seem to possess some prerequisites that are critical in the determination of the success of a new product (i.e. complexity, observability, and relative advantages) as identified by Rogers (1995). Lastly, utilitarian and hedonic dimensions of consumer attitude may enable retailers to design effective advertising campaigns by determining whether the functional or the sensational components of a product need to be emphasized.