مطالعه تجربی از رابطه بین سرمایه گذاری فن آوری خود خدمات و عملکرد مالی شرکت

More and more enterprises are taking advantage of self-service technologies (SSTs) in their customer-related operating activities, especially service firms. Although research on SSTs is prevalent, few studies have examined the impact of SSTs on firm financial performance. Given the growing importance of SSTs in the service industries in general and in the banking industry in particular, we therefore empirically examined the impacts of ATMs, one of the most widely accepted SSTs, on bank financial performance. Contrary to the existing literature, our results show ATMs have a positive relationship with profitability. However, we find no association between ATMs and growth performance.

For the last decades, firms have been investing in IT steadily and increasingly (Michael, 2007). Firms investing in information technology (IT) presumed that such investments would enhance operating efficiency and thus improve financial performance. From a strategic point of view, Porter and Millar (1985) suggest that IT is a business driver and thus can be used to reinforce competitive edge. The great progress of IT capability as well as high labor costs is driving firms to reshape their service delivery systems. The technologies are adapted in order to allow customers to produce and consume services electronically, without direct contact with firm employees. These kinds of technological interfaces are referred to as self-service technologies (SSTs) (Meuter et al., 2000). SSTs have been increasingly prominent in the service industries in particular. For example, hotels utilize automated check-in systems and airports take advantage of check-in kiosks. Other examples of SSTs include automated ticketing machines, electronic retailing, automated phone systems, automated teller machines (ATMs), telephone banking and mobile banking. Service providers who introduce SSTs may increase customer satisfaction, productivity and efficiency (Walker et al., 2002, Zeithaml and Gilly, 1987 and Meuter et al., 2003). The introduction of SSTs does not automatically lead to their acceptance and usage. Hence, many researchers have studied customer acceptance from the viewpoints of technology readiness (Liljander et al., 2006 and Lin and Hsieh, 2007), technology anxiety (Meuter et al., 2003), or e-commerce trust (e-trust) (Hwang and Kim, 2007). However, research examining the impact of SSTs on firm financial performance has been limited. The banking industry is one of the pioneers of SSTs applications and today heavily depends on SSTs in reshaping its service delivery systems. Several SSTs have already been utilized for years by the banking industry. Since the first ATM was installed in the late 1960s, ATMs have been considered as the most well-known and classic example of SSTs application in the banking industry. Banks were eager to deploy ATMs and replace costly counter tellers in order to improve cost efficiency and thus financial performance (Hannan and McDowell, 1984 and Banker et al., 1990). However, deploying each ATM machine now costs between $15,000 and $50,000. In addition, the maintenance and operation expenses range from $12,000 to $15,000 per ATM per year (Stavins, 2000). The tradeoff between the benefits and costs of deploying SSTs in general and ATMs in particular is an empirical issue to be examined. Prior research which examined the effects of ATMs on cost reduction or efficiency improvement usually used a dummy variable to distinguish ATM investment versus non-ATM investment. This dummy variable approach cannot precisely measure the intensity of ATM investment and thus may lose the power of detecting the precise impact of ATMs. In this paper, we collect the actual financial and operating data in our empirical analysis. Specifically, we use the actual number of ATMs of each bank, rather than using a dummy variable, to measure the extent of ATM investment. Therefore, we can better estimate the financial impacts of ATMs, one of the most typical SSTs used by the banking industry. In 2002, the banking industry ranked first in terms of IT investment (Kudyba and Diwan, 2002) with ATMs being one of the major investments. By studying the relationship between ATM investment and financial performance, we can provide more insights into the financial contributions of IT investment in general and one kind of SST investment (ATM) in particular. Our empirical results show that ATM investment has a significant and positive association with bank financial performance, but has no association with bank growth performance. Our findings provide evidence for the reasons behind the continual investment in ATMs, a well accepted SST, in the banking industry. The “IT/SST Investments and Performance” section provides a review of the literature on IT and SST investments. The “Research Model and Methodology” section presents the research model and methodology. The sample and empirical results are discussed in “The Sample and Empirical Results” section. The final two sections present the sensitivity analysis and conclusions respectively.

Since China joined the WTO in 2002, foreign banks and financial institutions have been permitted to access to one of the fastest growing financial markets in the world. The restrictions on foreign banks’ operations and businesses in China have been gradually removed. This paper uses the actual operating and financial data of Taiwanese banks to examine the impacts of ATM investment on financial and growth performance. The research results of this paper can provide some insights to those foreign banks that intend to enter and expand their banking businesses in Greater China. The main objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between self-service technology investment and financial performance. Our results demonstrate that ATMs are significantly and positively associated with financial performance. In addition, the sensitivity analysis shows that the influence of ATM investments on bank financial performance can last for more than one year. This paper highlights both positive and negative effects of ATMs. The empirical results indicate that ATM investment is profitable, but also that it has no significant impact on growth performance. This interesting finding suggests that banks can invest self-service technology, such ATMs, to improve their financial performance, but they cannot use self-service technology to enhance their growth in the future. In other words, some other means, rather than simply investing in self-service technology alone, have to be employed in order to improve growth performance. Every industry has its own way of taking advantage of information technology. Since the banking industry is a service industry, the results of this paper may not be applicable to manufacturing industries. Furthermore, the banking industry is highly regulated regarding its operations, and the generalization of the results in this paper towards other industries, even to other service industries, should be made with caution. In addition to ATMs, several kinds of self-service technologies, such as telephone banking, internet banking and mobile banking, have been utilized to deliver their services by the banking industry. The impacts of these alternative SSTs and their interacting effects remain unknown and deserve further examination.