واکنش های مصرف کننده به محصولات فن آوری پیشرفته : ویژگی های محصولات، شناخت و احساسات

The present study investigates how high-technology attributes influence consumer responses. Based on Mehrabian and Russell's Stimulus–Organism–Response (S–O–R) framework (1974), this study proposes that high-technology product attributes elicit consumers' cognitive (attitude) and affective states (pleasure and arousal), contributing to their approach–avoidance behavior. High-technology product users (N = 408) participated in surveys. The results provide support for the model. Among six factors of high-technology product attributes (usefulness, ease of use, innovativeness of technology, visual appeal, prototypicality, and self-expression), the latter four have major influences on approach behavior through attitude (cognitive state) and pleasure (affective state). Supplemental analysis shows that attitude and pleasure influence approach–avoidance behavior directly, but that arousal affects approach–avoidance behavior indirectly via pleasure.

Attributes of a product contribute to the success of product marketing (e.g., Meyers-Levy and Tybout, 1989). Technology products are “products that are the result of technology and which require substantial shifts in behavior of at least one member of the product usage channel” (Gardner, Johnson, Lee, and Wilkinson, 2000, p. 1053). Examples of technology products include, among many, mobile phones, PDAs, netbooks, high-tech TVs, e-readers, and GPS devices. Compared to other products, technology products tend to have short product life cycles (Riggs, 1983) and provide consumers with noteworthy changes in such product functions as technology-driven functions, designs, and/or services (Gardner et al., 2000). Technology products, typified by convergence, also require a technology-enabled functionality, which provides the product with manifold qualities (Gill and Lei, 2009). Accordingly, consumers evaluate certain functionalities of the product differently, and have thus different attitudinal and behavioral responses (Hong and Wyer, 1998 and Ko et al., 2008). The continual growth of the high-technology product marketplace is evident irrespective of the sluggish economy. According to Packaged Facts (2006), women in the U.S. spend $55 billion annually for technology purchases, and experience significant changes in their lives due to technology. Given the rapidly evolving technology and ceaseless development of new technology products, a key for success in the high-technology product business is to improve current knowledge about users' behaviors, particularly in response to multiple functions of technology products (Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 2000). Previous marketing research of technology product attributes has a few distinctive patterns. First, many studies focus on a few attributes which mainly pertain to performance functions (e.g., price, brand, quality) (Chang and Wildt, 1994 and Nowlis and Simonson, 1996), leaving out other aspects such as design (appearance) and social qualities of technology products. Second, conceptual studies which develop the dimensionality of technology product attributes call for empirical examination (Horváth and Sajtos, 2002 and Rindova and Petkova, 2007). Third, prior research mostly examines outcomes of product attributes such as brand choice (Nowlis and Simonson, 1996), preference persistence (Muthukrishnan and Kardes, 2001), purchase intention (Chang and Wildt, 1994 and Ko et al., 2008), and value (Gill and Lei, 2009), thereby not providing an understanding of the psychological process underlying the relationship between product attributes and consumer behaviors. The current study aims to extend and complement existing research by: (1) identifying a comprehensive set of technology product attributes that play a role in consumer adoption of technology products, and (2) investigating the underlying process whereby product attributes influence consumer behavior (approach–avoidance behavior) based on the Mehrabian and Russell (1974).

This study entails several theoretical implications for understanding consumer responses to an ever-growing product category, high-technology products. First of all, research has widely applied Mehrabian and Russell's (1974) S–O–R framework in retailing (e.g., Donovan and Rossiter, 1982 and Eroglu et al., 2001); empirical research has not applied the framework in the context of technology product use. By demonstrating the applicability of the S–O–R paradigm to this new consumer behavior context (i.e., technology products), this study establishes external validity. Second, findings reveal that (1) attributes of a technology product influence consumer reactions to the product via a cognitive state (attitude toward technology products) and (2) adding cognition to the traditional S–O–R model would better capture consumers' psychological process contributing to their approach behavior, in support of previous research (Eroglu et al., 2001). Thus, taking both cognitive and affective states into account advances existing knowledge about the role of object cues (product attributes) on consumers' technology product evaluation and their subsequent behavior (Malhotra, 2005). Third, the current research enriches technology product and S–O–R research by empirically identifying attributes relevant to technology products (Stimuli) from a consumer/user perspective, which include usefulness, ease of use, innovativeness of technology, visual appeal, prototypicality, and self-expression. The findings provide the conceptual research (Horváth and Sajtos, 2002 and Rindova and Petkova, 2007) with empirical evidence. Furthermore, among the attributes of importance, innovativeness and self-expression play pivotal roles in creating three psychological states, attitude, pleasure and arousal; visual appeal and protopyticality are important to creating positive attitude and pleasure, leading to approach behavior. However, the results call for attention that protopyticality has a negative effect on attitude and pleasure, contrary to the hypotheses. A reason may be due to the nature of high-technology products; the effect of schema congruity on information processing and product evaluations is more sensitive in new product contexts (i.e., technology products) than general product categories (Meyers-Levy and Tybout, 1989), calling for further research. This study also provides practical implications for product developers and marketers with respect to how to develop and market technology products. First, product developers need to make sure new products accomplish all six technology product functions identified, since the six factors represent attributes of technology products comprehensively (67%). Firms may begin from these fundamental attributes, while putting out additional efforts to identify other unique attributes specific to a product category under consideration. Second, influencing consumers to have a more favorable attitude toward and pleasing experiences with a technology product should be a strategic goal of product/service developers. For example, the firm can make such characteristics as innovativeness, visual attractiveness, and capability of helping users express their identity, evident throughout all product design, development, and marketing strategies. Similarly, the use of technology-based tools (e.g., Q&A and Help tools) and instructional materials (e.g., user manual and operation instructions) enables customers to learn how to operate and use the product without difficulty. Such strategies, which emanate from the need to enhance positive attitudes and pleasure, will encourage users to adopt new technology products. Last, the communication power of technology products has a critical impact influencing consumer evaluation of technology products. This finding implies that consumers, at least young consumers (early adopters), now consider technology products as a medium by which they can develop and manage social relationships with others and express their own identity and values to themselves as well as to others. Providing ways in which customers can customize services to maintain their social networks and express their own identity to others will make customers keep using the product. This study entails some limitations impeding the generalizability of the results. First, college-age students, major survey respondents in this study, tend to be innovators or early adopters in terms of trials and utilization of new technology products. Considering that early adopters (innovators, lead users) are accurate information sources for accurate marketing research and practices (von Hippel, 1986), the findings from this study are still valuable. Future research can test the proposed model with a wider range of ages, incomes and education levels. Second, this study examines technology products in general, not differentiating high-technology product types. Some technology products may prioritize a certain attribute (e.g., self-expressiveness) compared to other products. Future research could elaborate the product attributes – internal states – response links specific to an individual technology product in order to build a comprehensive understanding of decision making processing driven by product attributes.