Intention to Adopt Intelligent Clothing in the Fashion Retail Industry: Extending the HISAM Model with Technology Readiness

Abstract

As technology and science expand from the palms of our hands into the sleeves of our shirts, the future of fashion textiles becomes almost unimaginable. The emerging technology related to the integration of the IoT and AI has resulted in intelligent clothing in the fashion retail industry. Intelligent clothing technology can be defined as a result of transformation of fabric into digital technology by bridging fashion and the IoT with newly developed material technologies. However, recent studies on intelligent clothing have been few and far between, and scholars have focused more on organizations’ intention to adopt intelligent clothing technology rather than customers’ intention to use it. The current research fills this gap by applying the Hedonic Information Systems Acceptance Model (HISAM) to determine the practical and aesthetic factors influencing consumers’ propensity to use intelligent clothing. Furthermore, technology readiness has been investigated as a technology-related personality trait acting as a moderator in the research model. Accordingly, a quantitative survey strategy was undertaken and responses from a representative sample of 836 Sri Lankan retail consumers were analysed using Smart PLS-SEM. The results reveal that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment positively influence intention to use artificially intelligent clothing, whilst technology readiness interestingly moderates their impact on the intention to use AI clothing. The findings have theoretical and practical implications for marketing scholars and practitioners and point to several future research directions as well.