Technology Playfulness and Anxiety as Motivators and Hindrances of SST Adoption: Commercial Banking Sector in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The swift growth of technological improvements has supported the continuing transformation of the service sector, in its conversion from conventional physical service encounters handled by service professionals into customer-controlled self-service technologies (SSTs). Even though prior research attempts have been made in assessing the acceptance of technology in general, the insufficient focus is placed on self-service technologies. Further, understanding the target customer is crucial with the fierce competition existing in the market sided with the development of technology. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate which elements comprise the customers’ technology playfulness and anxiety and how it influence the use of self-service technologies in the Sri Lankan commercial banking sector. The study undertook a qualitative approach with 50 semi-structured interviews from Western province banking customers who use SSTs utilizing a non-probabilistic purposeful sampling strategy. The data were analyzed using the technique of thematic analysis. The findings revealed “Enjoyment”, “Fun”, “Innovativeness”, “Entertaining”, “Creativity”, “Pleasure” and “Appealing features” as the seven themes of technology playfulness motivating the use of SSTs and “Transaction doubts”, “Elderly difficulties”, “Verification doubts” and “Security doubts” as the four themes of hindering factors towards the use of SSTs in the banking sector. The findings would contribute to the literature gap on the customer movement towards self-service technologies. Insights from the study would support the practitioners in understanding how to improve with the proper use of technology and delivery of self-service technologies in the commercial banking sector of Sri Lanka.