Abstract
"New technologies and digital services keep emerging, disrupting entire industries as well as consumers’ behavior. Hence, this thesis emphasizes the continued relevance of these phenomena as a timely and important research area, in which a better understanding of consumers’ technology adoption, continuance, and discontinuance is valuable both for research and practice.
The overarching aim of this thesis is to advance our understanding of technology adoption, continuance, and discontinuance, both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, we approach technology adoption, continuance, and discontinuance on a behavioral level. Empirically, we explore technology adoption with projected adoption drivers and barriers in a retail context. More specifically, this thesis contributes to research on consumers’ technology acceptance and resistance in the following four ways: 1) by delineating the related but distinct concepts of technology adoption, continuance, and discontinuance; 2) by systematically reviewing the existing literature on technology discontinuance, developing a conceptual framework of discontinuance types and associated implications for research and practice; 3) by exploring reasons both for and against consumers’ acceptance of smart services and internet-of-things devices in a retail context; and 4) by identifying the most suitable business model features of an unmanned store. Our findings contribute to the extant body of research on technology acceptance and resistance and offer valuable recommendations for practice."