Technology Acceptance of Connected Services in the Automotive Industry

Telematics in the automotive industry are the most popular example of Connected Services. But despite their implementation in several million of vehicles worldwide, there has only been little consideration in research. Clemens Hiraoka analyzes the entire customer lifecycle from awareness, acceptance, and usage to the renewal of the service contract and uncovers the drivers in each of these stages. His evaluation gives a series of new implications for management and research.

Autorentext
Dr. Clemens Hiraoka received his doctorate under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Florian von Wangenheim at the department of services and technology marketing at the Technische Universität München.

Zusammenfassung
Connected Services constitute a very recent development in many industries and bridge service and product offerings. In the consumer business, one of the most prominent examples is TeleServices in the automotive industry: through a mobile data connection, diagnoses, maintenance, and also repair tasks can be performed on the vehicle while being on the road. Efficiency and security gains for both the driver and the manufacturer of the vehicle make such services a highly attractive development. Nevertheless, research and also practical experience on the acceptance and usage of such services is very limited, especially in the B2C area. The work of Clemens Hiraoka therefore contributes to the academic and managerial of technology-intensive services in at least three ways: First, the rich body of technology acceptance model (TAM) research is analyzed and consequently extended for its application on Connected Services in B2C. The theoretical framework is expanded to also include the role of traditional marketing elements such as branding and pricing. Second, this doctoral dissertation bases all quantitative analyses on a large sample of real customers, with both motivation and usage data combined. Although the risks associated with self-reported usage data (common method bias) are well known in research, very few authors are able to address it as Clemens Hiraoka does in his work, using both attitudinal and behavioral data. From there, structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to uncover the relevant factors for accepting and using Connected Services.

Inhalt
to Connected Services.- Scoping the research focus through theoretical foundations.- Experiencing Connected Services in the automotive industry.- Forming the conceptual framework into a research model.- Winning insights from quantitative data analysis.- Developing Connected Services today and tomorrow.