The Adoption of Online Shopping Assistants:Perceived Similarity as an Antecedent to Evaluative Beliefs*

摘要

In recent work, researchers have supplemented traditional IS adoption models with new constructs that capture nusers’ relational, social, and emotional beliefs. These beliefs have given rise to questions regarding their nantecedents and the nature of the user-artifact relationship. This paper sheds light on these questions by nasserting that users perceive and respond to information technology (IT) artifacts as social partners and form nperceptions about their social characteristics. Subsequently, users’ perceptions of the similarity of these ncharacteristics to their own affect evaluations of these artifacts. Within the context of online shopping and using nan automated shopping assistant, our paper draws upon social psychology and human-computer interaction nresearch in developing hypotheses regarding the effects of perceived personality similarity (PPS) and perceived ndecision process similarity (PDPS) on a number of beliefs (enjoyment, social presence, trust, ease of use, and nusefulness). The results indicate that PDPS acts as an antecedent to these beliefs, while the effects of PPS are nlargely mediated by PDPS. Furthermore, the results reveal that the effects of perceived similarity, in general, nexceed those of the effects of the individual assessments of the user’s and the assistant’s personalities and ndecision processes. These results have important implications for IS design. They highlight the importance of ndesigning artifacts that can be matched to users’ characteristics. They also underscore the importance of nconsidering similarity perceptions rather than solely focusing on perceptions of the IT artifact’s characteristics; a ncommon approach in IS adoption research.