Sayed Kifayat Shah
Zhongjun Tang1*
Beata Gavurova
Judit Oláh
Ángel Acevedo-Duque- 1College of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China
- 2Faculty of Mining, Ecology, Process Control and Geotechnologies, Technical University of Kosice, Košice, Slovakia
- 3Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
- 4Department of Public Management and Governance, College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 5Public Policy Observatory, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago, Chile
Consumer innovativeness is a significant personality attribute that refers to a person’s proclivity to acquire and utilize new items more rapidly and frequently than others. Although previous research has revealed a relationship between consumer innovativeness and the intention to buy new technology products, little is known about the determinants such as visibility and guidance affordances, environmental awareness, and safety concerns that underpin this relationship. Using the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory through the PLS-SEM approach, this study analyzed the data of 341 Chinese consumers to explore the prospects mentioned above. The empirical results show that visibility and guidance affordances encourage consumer innovativeness. The results further reveal that environmental awareness and product safety concerns mediate the consumer innovativeness and purchase intention relationship. This model will contribute to the literature by improving predictive ability over previous models. Therefore, managers and policy-makers who wish to make constructive changes in the intentions of technology consumers are encouraged to ruminate on the extrapolations of this article.
1 Introduction
With its cutting-edge features, technological advancement has altered consumer behavior during the hugely destructive COVID-19 epidemic that ravaged the whole planet, and high-performance work systems in the organization became a challenge (Asad et al., 2017; Shuja et al., 2020; Azadi et al., 2021; Al Halbusi et al., 2022; NeJhaddadgar et al., 2022). Vaccine availability is a global issue since COVID-19 spreads through physical touch and human interaction, affecting all segments of society (Jaffar 2020; Shuja et al., 2020; Maqsood et al., 2021; Su et al., 2021). The Covid-19 crisis has led to mobility restrictions and community lockdowns, affecting human health behaviors (Jaffar 2020; Aqeel et al., 2021; Farzadfar et al., 2022; Geng et al., 2022; Zeidabadi et al., 2022). The ongoing Covid-19 crisis has affected business strategy and entrepreneurial activities that have influenced global business performance (Ge et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2022; Mubeen et al., 2022; Yu et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2022). Social media has played a crucial role in crisis management, and firms have used technological applications and CSR practices to handle this challenging business environment (Aman et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2021; Fu 2022; Mamirkulova and Mi. 2022). People have used the internet and technology, and some were addicted; however, the covid-19 crisis has posed social, economic and political challenges. Besides, health priority has become a top preference (Pouresmaeil et al., 2019; Fattahi et al., 2020; Khazaie et al., 2021; Mubeen et al., 2021; Yoosefi Lebni et al., 2021). Social media use increased for effective communication in the inequality of vaccine provision (Lebni et al., 2020; Moradi et al., 2020; Azizi et al., 2021; Local Burden of Disease 2021; Su et al., 2021; Su et al., 2021). In addition, psychological worry and anxiety affect the business environment for tourism and service firms, influencing emotions and lifestyle priorities (Hussain et al., 2017; Aman et al., 2019; Mamirkulova et al., 2020; Mubeen et al., 2020; Hussain et al., 2021). The situation has forced many to stay away from social events. The hotel, leisure, and tourist businesses suffered catastrophic psychological impacts because people chose to stay at home (Lebni et al., 2021; Mohammadi et al., 2021; Shoib et al., 2021; Su et al., 2021). Covid-19’s effects on hospitality, travel and tourism operations worldwide have created challenges for users to overcome (Li et al., 2022; Li et al., 2022).
One of the main advantages of the modern period for combating the difficult COVID-19 outbreak situations is technological innovation (Rahmat et al., 2022). Technological advancements have greatly aided the ability of healthcare systems to treat patients. It aids in the reopening of other industries as well as the global economy, including social segregation, crowd control technology, and big data utilization for prompt and real-time decision-making (Li et al., 2021). During a pandemic, technology assists human-driven demands for standardizing monitoring to precisely and safely protect human health, collect data and evaluate individual data for quick decision-making. Information and communication technology may be extremely helpful in creating an environment that improves people’s lives and the economy. With advanced technological standards and characteristics, 5G technology is anticipated to usher in new developments and opportunities for businesses and sectors other than telecommunication (Mavromoustakis et al., 2016; Cheng et al., 2021; Oinas-Kukkonen et al., 2021). Some of the products and services of 5G technology are mobile ticketing, mobile check-in processes, mobile payment methods, and online information services used by the airline, high-speed train, and public transit industries. As a result, firms focus further on quality products (Edinger-Schons et al., 2018; Shah and Tang 2022). Therefore, it is crucial to determine 5G technology users’ intentions when commercialization of the technology is just beginning to explore. In this context, the 5G technology diffusion should be akin to that of other innovations; namely, early adopters of new technology should illustrate greater innovativeness (Rogers 2003; Butt et al., 2021). Earlier research has mainly focused on the direct impact of consumer innovativeness on intent and behavior (Bartels and Reinders 2010). However, focusing on the direct impact ignores the mechanism underlying this connection. It must be needed to examine the indirect relationship between consumer innovativeness and the purchasing intentions of new technology. Therefore, this study inspects the indirect connection between consumer innovativeness and purchasing intentions toward new 5G technology products and services.
Studies have also found that consumers make purchasing decisions depending on their habitual decision-making approach (Nieroda et al., 2018; Usman et al., 2021). We anticipate that innovative consumers will predominantly employ the cognitive decision-making process to make 5G product decisions. Therefore, the concept of affordances, such as visibility and guidance, can help us better comprehend the practical aspects of 5G technology and the perspectives of users who engage with these aspects (Tuncer 2021). This is because 5G technology will not only inspire consumers to connect but will also provide additional novel and complicated services. Therefore, the concept of affordances helps investigate consumer innovativeness.
Further, we label factors such as product safety concerns and environmental awareness, which can influence the purchasing intention of 5G technology items by modifying the consumer innovativeness and purchasing intention relationship. The reason is that 5G’s electromagnetic fields (EMF) and radiofrequency (RF) radiations have been identified as a new form of environmental pollution that has long been recognized to cause physiological and psychological health implications (Russell 2018; Shah et al., 2021a). Chinese people’s environmental consciousness has remained constant and is presently at a high level (Shah et al., 2021b). As a result, it is worthwhile to inspect the impact of environmental awareness and product safety concerns on consumer technology-related purchase intent in China. Therefore, this study offers a theoretical model grounded on the diffusion of innovation theory. Following are the main objectives of this study:
• To create a comprehensive model that would illuminate consumers’ intentions to use 5G products and services.
• To find novel factors influencing consumers’ intents to acquire 5G products and services.
• To extend 5G technology purchasing intention research by providing empirical evidence.
These results may prompt manufacturers to alter their marketing campaigns to attract more consumers to their products and services.
The remaining article is designed as follows. The next part offers a theoretical foundation, which leads to the formation of hypotheses. The methodology part comes after that. Finally, the study closes with a discussion of its findings, limitations, and future research prospects.
2 Literature review
2.1 Diffusion innovation theory
The Paradigm for exploring user acceptance of novel technologies/products is drawn from the diffusion of innovation research. Diffusion is an approach by which an innovation is conveyed to adherents of a social system through specific routes. Diffusion is connected to another notion known as “adoption,” which is a sequence of phases in which the user progresses from first notice of an innovation (recognition) to developing an attitude toward it (concern, appraisal, trial) and to making an acceptance decision. For this purpose, the DOI theory analyzes what, how, and why novel technologies expand among users (Robertson 1967). The DOI’s ideas also explain the quality of innovation contributes to the choice of adopting that particular technology (Karahanna et al., 1999; Hooks et al., 2022). According to Heidenreich et al. (2017), early adopters often have greater consumer innovativeness. As a result, such ingenuity should have a favorable effect on the willingness of consumers to accept new technologies. Many scholars have characterized consumer adoption intention of technological products and consider various purposeful indicators, such as readiness to pay and consumer preferences, to be the key proxy factors for adoption (Noppers et al., 2019; Li et al., 2021). Some other researchers presented conceptual models by incorporating mediators to examine consumer intention (Belk 1975; Cop et al., 2020; Shah and Zhongjun 2021).
The Corona Virus, which is responsible for the infectious acute respiratory illness known as COVID-19 disease, first appeared in a few instances of pneumonia in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 and then spread throughout the rest of the world (Yu et al., 2022). Businesses have reached new markets during the epidemic by extensively utilizing technological platforms to engage potential clients through social marketing. The COVID-19 epidemic has lately caused a shift in consumer behavior (Mason et al., 2021; Yu et al., 2022). As a result, companies have found new opportunities in the ability to emerge technologies to reach many people. This pandemic has opened up new opportunities to access marketplaces that adhere to supply chains and demand and all other pandemic-related difficulties.
Therefore, it is critically necessary to use emerging technology to increase the effectiveness of worldwide efforts in pandemic monitoring, prevention, control, treatment, and outbreak prediction (Thimbleby 2013). Currently, contaminated countries rely on testing, active case discovery, individual quarantining, and contact tracking. Emerging technology can therefore assist in addressing COVID-19 and lessen these difficulties. In other words, the market does not respond to innovation in the same way, and not everyone in society accepts the innovation simultaneously. The adoption rate is the pace at which adherents of a social system accept innovations, and it reflects the reality that some people adapt innovations quicker and more swiftly than others. As a result, consumers can be early adopters, innovators, and laggards.
2.2 Personal factors (affordances, environmental awareness, and safety concerns)
Affordance theory has also been extensively utilized in the perspective of different research in recent years to investigate the impact of technological items on people’s cognitive views and behavioral reactions (Dong and Wang 2018; Sun et al., 2019). Earlier research assessed the characteristics of affordance, demonstrating that affordances may differ in different contexts (Koroleva and Kane 2017; Shao et al., 2020). Tuncer (2021) explained technological affordance as “the possibilities and opportunities for action that arise when players interact with a focused technology.” We believe it may influence an individual’s cognitive and emotional reactions and enhance consumer innovativeness. The reason is that people are also more prone to avoid ambiguity in their surroundings because of uncertain conditions. Safari et al. (2018) consistently used the term environmental awareness while discussing the primary factors of responsible behavior. According to Amyx et al. (1994), people with a solid understanding of the environment are more prepared to pay for environmentally friendly items. Therefore, environmental awareness is a broad notion that encompasses perspectives, sensitivities, and concerns about issues, along with attitudes about how to solve problems, cope and uphold the link between the environment and folks to enhance the environmental quality (Hopwood et al., 2005; Chen and Wang 2016; Mustafa et al., 2022). For the happiness of the whole society, it is essential to spread environmental consciousness to the population. Scholars have recently fixated on the link between consumer purchase intention and environmental awareness (Paul et al., 2016; Shao et al., 2020; Shah et al., 2021).
Similarly, product safety reduces the dangers that jeopardize consumers’ health by manufacturing products in a specific manner. Product safety concern, according to Spink et al. (2019), indicates that a product will not damage consumers when shaped and used. Consumers’ awareness of product safety and unfavorable word of mouth may significantly impact their purchase behavior (Kaaviya et al., 2019). According to Michaelidou and Hassan (2008), safety issue does not directly impact buyers’ intentions but relatively have an indirect link. Therefore, we’ll look at the indirect impact of environmental awareness and safety concerns on consumer innovativeness and the 5G product purchase intention relationship.
3 Research framework and hypotheses
3.1 Research framework
Previous studies have shown that innovation combines the need for uniqueness and excitement because it shows a willingness to absorb innovation more quickly (Heidenreich et al., 2017). As a result, consumer innovativeness might be seen as a motivating element to a certain degree. Furthermore, Rogers et al. (2005) put forward that the three key innovation adoption stages are information, persuasion, and choice, which show consumers’ intention of the psychosomatic change and are guided by motivational factors. Especially people with strong innovation ability are more willing to interact with novelty, so they actively seek information to expand their understanding of innovation (Lin and Filieri 2015). In the persuasion stage, consumers form an innovative attitude based on a priori knowledge and understanding (Rogers 2003). They apply this information to measure ethical requirements, other folks’ views, and expected difficulties (Li et al., 2021). Thus, they might not make an early choice, as the ultimate choice to accept innovations can only be made after thoroughly examining these aspects (Rogers 2003). A realistic strategy to theorize many components in the persuasion stage is to rely on environmental awareness and safety concerns. This is because studies have revealed that pollution may elicit nasty feelings via its harmful consequences on health (Griffitt 1970; Shah et al., 2021). Therefore, consumers who comprehend environmental and health risks are happy with environmentally friendly technology products and services.
Similarly, technology affordance in the 5G context refers to an opportunity provided to the buyer (Dong and Wang 2018; Tuncer 2021). In the present study, consistent with previous studies (Tuncer, 2021), affordance includes visibility and guidance. These elements give a thorough acquaintance of the processes that relate consumer innovativeness to 5G product purchase intentions.
3.2 Hypothesis development
According to Neal et al. (2004), purchases involves four phases: need identification, search information, evaluating alternatives, and making a buying decision. As innovative users accept innovation faster and more frequently, they will trigger the demand for distinctiveness and inspiration to a certain level (Heidenreich et al., 2017). Driven by such demands, buyers collect information about technology items and shape their understanding consequently. Consumers form their views regarding items by assessing several alternatives depending on the knowledge gained. Consumer innovativeness is the most crucial motivator determining the desire to embrace innovative technologies (Rogers 2003). In the context of 5G technology, consumer innovativeness reveals the requisite for uniqueness and simulations to get constructive emotional experiences. Previous research has demonstrated a favorable association between buyer innovativeness and intention to embrace technology products (He et al., 2018; Tuncer 2021). Therefore buyers may meet their desires for novelty and pleasure by acquiring 5G products. As a result, we offer the following hypotheses:
H1. Consumer innovativeness (CI) positively influences 5G technology consumers’ purchasing intentions (CPI).The term “visibility affordance” relates to the provision of simple access and visibility of item information associated with consumer action. As users require additional product knowledge before making a choice, concentrating on the product details can give the buyer a sense of immersion. Consumers are drawn to highly superior products that may support them by showing their riches and boosting their social standing (Chan et al., 2015; Meijani et al., 2021). This choice of superior products indicates a drive to improve social worth, comparable to the notion of conspicuous consumerism, which is associated with purchasing things to better one’s social status (He et al., 2012; Kunkel et al., 2019). From the perspective of this study, giving information about 5G technology products and services improve product credibility, consumer innovativeness, and purchasing intentions. Therefore we hypothesized that:
H2a. Visibility affordance (VA) towards 5G technology positively relates to consumer innovativeness (CI).Similarly, the unfavorable public impression of the possible danger of a new technology product or service is referred to as technological stigma. The stigma may be caused by real or imagined dangers fuelled by bad images from many sources. Technology stigmas may cause uncertainty and misconceptions about the influence of technological activities on public health and safety. Therefore, guidance affordability offers a customized service infrastructure that allows consumers to quickly discover relevant and genuine product information based on their preferences and requirements (Dong and Wang 2018; Tuncer 2021). On the other hand, the growth in information capacity makes it harder for consumers to locate the genuine product information they need (Arazy et al., 2010). To address this issue, marketers must build a technological infrastructure that allows them to provide goods that fit the tastes and demands of each consumer. In the context of this study, guidance affordance can enable consumers to plunge themselves into this customized service process completely. It can offer genuine information to enhance consumer confidence, trust, and innovativeness. Therefore, we offer the following hypothesis:
H2b. Guidance affordance (GA) towards 5G technology is positively related to consumer innovativeness (CI).Furthermore, environmental awareness refers to consumers’ comprehensive analysis of environmental problems and is critical in motivating individuals to move from their existing behavior to more environmentally friendly behavior (Daziano and Bolduc 2013; Shah et al., 2021). Consumers who are more environmentally concerned are more inclined to spend money than consumers who are less environmentally conscientious. According to Amyx et al. (1994), persons knowledgeable about environmental concerns are more inclined to pay for ecologically friendly items. As a result, increasing environmental awareness and understanding equates to increasing environmentally responsible behavior. In the framework of this study, the spread of 5G technology products may be sluggish, showing that buyers will be worried about the environment regardless of whatever sorts of 5G things they purchase. Therefore, we recommend the following hypothesis:
H3 a,b. Environmental awareness (EA) positively mediates the relationship between consumer innovativeness (CI) and purchase intentions (CPI) of 5G technology products.According to (Maziriri and Chuchu 2017), consumers are usually risk-averse; therefore, a lack of knowledge will increase consumers’ perceived risk of purchasing products. As a result, their desire to buy products decreases. Based on the research of Kai-Ineman and Tversky (1979), this study believes that consumers’ understanding or experience of physical hazards may lead to developing negative intentions towards new technology products. The health consciousness attitude is related to self-awareness and how health concerns are integrated into everyday actions (Kulsuma 2018; Wang et al., 2019). People with health awareness pay more attention to and worry about their health. They maintain and improve their life quality by participating in healthy activities (Newsom et al., 2005). Such consumers consistently favor a better environment and goods. According to this study, consumers’ understanding of the negative repercussions of 5G hazard encounters may alter their perception of the severity of consuming 5G technology, resulting in a shift in their purchase intentions. As a result, the product safety concern influences consumer intentions by raising their perception of the severity of 5G goods. The following hypotheses are presented based on the previous evaluation of the literature:
H4 a,b. Product safety concern (SC) positively mediates the association between consumer innovativeness (CI) and purchase intentions (CPI) of 5G technology products.Our research framework is shown in Figure 1. Next, we will construct a few hypotheses founded on the background presented.
FIGURE 1. Proposed model.
4 Methodology
4.1 The test region: Beijing, China
Usually, people in developing countries believe that one of the barriers to technology adoption is inadequate infrastructure (Shah et al., 2021). But, infrastructure would not be an issue for emerging economies such as China since government and telecom companies have spent heavily to guarantee that infrastructure can handle 5G operations. Therefore, China is the world’s largest mobile phone market with 5G technology. According to (Shah et al., 2021), Beijing currently has 45,700 5G base stations with over 12 million 5G users. It expects to use 5G technology in 28% of mobile networks by 2025 (Shah et al., 2021). The author expected to get the maximum number of 5G users from Beijing because the installation of 5G is more in Beijing than in other parts of China.
Similarly, according to the World data atlas report, China’s adult literacy rate is expanding at a 10.52 % yearly pace. It climbed from 65.5 % in 1982 to 96.8% in 2018. Environmental awareness is positively correlated with the improvement of education levels. Therefore, Chinese users are more concerned about the environment and health than ever. That is why China has piqued the interest of scholars and practitioners. This article selected Beijing for data collection since it is the best place to obtain a good sample for this research.
4.2 Questionnaire design
Based on the study’s purpose, data on the use of technology can be acquired through a series of techniques. Numerous techniques are utilized to enhance the data validity and reliability to produce quality outcomes. We adjusted each component from previous studies to fit our study scenario. The cross-sectional survey approach is the primary method employed in this study. The consumer purchase intention items were derived from (Moghavvemi et al., 2015; Li et al., 2021; Shah et al., 2021), while the innovativeness constructs were adjusted from (Heidenreich et al., 2017; Adnan et al., 2018). Items were taken for environmental awareness from the studies (Han and Ryu 2009; Hsu and Lin 2018; Shan et al., 2020), while the product safety concern items were adopted from the research of Omar et al. (2021).
Similarly, the affordances items were adjusted from the research article (Tuncer 2021). A few of these items’ text was slightly changed to anticipate purchase intentions. The five-point Likert scale was used for evaluation. The objectives of the survey were made known to each participant. A pilot research was done to evaluate the questionnaire’s quality to protect the content validity. We requested two doctorate candidates in similar domains to spot any potential uncertainty. The doctorate scholars also completed the card sorting assignment to categorize all the items based on their perceived semantics. Items with different structures were changed or eliminated before the testing procedure. The questionnaire was completed in Chinese and English based on the respondent’s demographics.
4.3 Sampling
We polled 4G and 5G consumers to test the given assumptions. The questionnaire was divided into demographic characteristics and a collection of measuring items designed to represent our study model. Data was acquired by SO JUMP (www.wjx.cn) from Chinese users in Beijing through a survey from 15 December 2021, to 5 January 2022. The questionnaires were randomly distributed, and respondents were asked to answer questions about their socio-demographic characteristics. A total of 370 responses were received, with 29 incomplete ones not included in the analysis. The demographic characteristics of the 341 responses of the participants are summarized in Table 1. It was revealed that the ratio of male (44.21%) and female (55.72%) participants, with over 80% being between the ages of 20 and 40. Around 99% of respondents were educated. In terms of use, 152 individuals (44.57%) and 189 people (55.43%) reported utilizing 4G and 5G services, respectively. Around 75% of the respondents were from Beijing, while the rest were from other parts of China.
TABLE 1. Demographics information.
5 Data analysis
For confirmatory factor analysis, we used a model created in Smartpls3.00 to assess the data validity and reliability. At least a minimum of three related items define all variables. We first conducted a collinearity test to eliminate concerns about multi-correlation. We confirmed that the variance inflation factor (VIF) of independent factors was less than 3, significantly lower than the key limit of 10 (Hu et al., 2017). Based on the two-step approach in PLS-SEM, the results of the factor loadings were analyzed to determine the relationships between the latent variables and reflecting indicators (Fernandes 2012; Qalati et al., 2021). Structural equation modelling (SEM) is a statistical framework that explains the variables relationship and precisely illustrates the suggested model (Hair et al., 2016; Sharif et al., 2022). The Partial least square (PLS) approach is also a valuable option for developing theories and doing causal analysis because it does not call for any assumptions regarding the distributions of sample data (Hair et al., 2016; Shah et al., 2021). As per the “ten times rule,” the minimal sample size (N = 341) for PLS-SEM examination must be more than ten times the number of pathways in the model (Kelloway 1998; Marcoulides et al., 2009; Hair et al., 2012). Therefore, PLS-SEM is applied to assess the planned model in this study.
5.1 Measurement model assessment
The external loading values were examined to determine the relationship between latent variables and reflective indicators. On a five-point scale, the mean score varied from (3.13) to (4.18), indicating that most consumers were happy with the 5G products. The standard deviations (SD) varied from (0.829) to (1.05), indicating that the results were satisfactory. Items with an external factor load greater than 0.6 are retained, and items with an external factor load less than 0.6 are deleted from the scale (as shown in Table 2 and Figure 2). The only cause to remove such values is to upsurge the composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE) (Fornell and Larcker 1981; Hair et al., 2016). This research practiced construct validity, which included convergence validity and discriminant validity. The term convergence validity denotes the extent to which a measure interacts with or is connected to other measures of a comparable construct (Hair et al., 2016). The convergence efficiency is demonstrated when the predicted constructs value of the AVE is greater or equal to 0.5. All constructs had an acceptable AVE value, thus meeting the condition for achieving convergent validity (Table 3). Composite reliability (CR) can also be used to assess convergent validity. All constructs demonstrate satisfactory high CR ratings above the 0.60 thresholds. The reliability assessments must be greater than 0.70 when calculating Cronbach’s alpha to observe internal consistency. The 0.70 level is often believed to be frequently acknowledged in social science research (Hair et al., 2016; Shah and Zhongjun 2021). All values demonstrated an acceptable Cronbach’s coefficient alpha level (0.70) of reliability (Table 3). Generally, the proposed standards are appropriate for investigating the significance of the routes. Discriminant validity is also employed to test the variance among variables. A prominent strategy for assessing discriminant validity was to probe the correlation matrix of variables (Chin 1998; Hair et al., 2016; Shah et al., 2021). According to Table 4, all the model constructs meet this requirement since no off-diagonal component surpasses the corresponding diagonal item. As a result, it demonstrated discriminant validity.
TABLE 2. Constructs with outer loading values (OL).
FIGURE 2. Factor loading values on smartpls 3.00.
TABLE 3. Construct reliability and validity.
TABLE 4. Discriminant validity through heterotrait-monotrait ratio (HTMT).
Furthermore, The PLS technique is used to analyze the theoretical framework to identify the significance of the route and the proposed model’s predicting capacity. The bootstrap procedure is then used to determine the level of significance of the route parameters. To begin, the path coefficient significance of the structural model is carefully judged using the T statistic and p values (Hair et al., 2016; Shah et al., 2021). Table 5 highlights the study hypotheses and depicts the latent variable correlation coefficients and bootstrapping critical ratio. The T statistic determines the consistency; a 95% confidence interval greater than 1.96 is regarded as satisfactory. As a consequence, all of our study assumptions were confirmed.
TABLE 5. Path coefficient through Smartpls Bootstrapping.
Further, we discover favorable direct and indirect connections (Table 6 and Table 7) of the variables between CI and CPI in the proposed model. Consequently, our findings back H1, H2a, H2b, H3a, H3b, H4a, and H4b. These findings serve as the foundation for the discussion in the next section.
TABLE 6. Direct effects through SmartPLS bootstrapping.
TABLE 7. Indirect effect through SmartPLS bootstrapping.
6 Discussion
Businesses have penetrated new markets during the epidemic because of their aggressive use of modern technologies (Rashid et al., 2020; Yu et al., 2022). Many issues have arisen for businesses because of various COVID-19 concerns (Kanwal et al., 2019; Hamza Shuja et al., 2020). Existing client loss, delays in supply chains, modifications to export orders, and shortages of raw materials are some of these issues (Kanwal et al., 2019; Yu et al., 2022). As a result, businesses at all levels have discovered new ways to connect with consumers on a large scale (Islm et al., 2021). The appearance of the virus (COVID-19) has affected all sectors and companies, including banking, tourism, and cultural organizations (Abaalzamat et al., 2021). Business firms have faced many challenges, such as energy issues, and tackled environmental and CSR issues amid the COVID-19 crisis (Sattar et al., 2020; Xu and Sattar 2020; Latief et al., 2021; Latief et al., 2022; Sattar 2022). To access new markets that conform to supply chains, transportation, supply-demand meet-ups, and other challenges experienced in the pandemic, COVID-19 has provided a novel perspective to marketing (Yu et al., 2022). Due to these market shifts, it is now crucial to comprehend customer willingness as well. This article’s objective was to look at the influence of affordances on innovativeness and further environmental awareness and safety concerns on consumer innovativeness and purchase intentions relationship. Therefore, a structured questionnaire was designed, backed by existing research, and performed in the capital of China. Four hypotheses were developed and evaluated using PLS-SEM to discuss the study aims. The data, structural, and measurement models all fit well, and the consistency was high for various structures. Compared with the previous one-dimensional comprehensive framework for consumer innovation (He et al., 2018; Li et al., 2021), it directly and indirectly, impacts consumer innovation and purchase intention.
We found that visibility and guidance affordances directly impact consumer innovativeness towards 5G technology products. As a result, this highlights the need to supply personalized goods and provide counsel within the context of the consumer’s preferences and needs. This also demonstrates that allowing consumers to see and guide what they are about to purchase can foster confidence. Since the adoption of 5G goods is delayed, regardless of which categories of 5G items consumers purchase, VA and GA play essential roles in shaping consumer innovativeness. We further reveal that environmental awareness and safety concerns mediate the associations between consumer innovativeness (CI) and intention (CPI) of 5G technology items. The potential explanations for the mediating effect of environmental awareness (EA) and safety concerns are that, due to China’s fast economic development, the Chinese people’s spending power has expanded significantly. They are inspired to purchase environmentally friendly technology to improve their quality of life and health.
6.1 Theoretical implications
The outcomes of this article provide better acumens of the impact of innovativeness in boosting the 5G technology adoption intentions. Though previous research has studied the influence of user innovativeness on product adoption intentions (Heidenreich et al., 2017), they have disregarded 5G technology goods. We supplement the current research by analyzing the innovativeness effect on the espousal of 5G goods. We suggest that more attention should be paid to consumers’ innovation, awareness, safety, and affordability of 5G products. Most studies adopt a comprehensive one-way framework for user innovation (Hong et al., 2017) while ignoring other consumer attributes. This study adds to our understanding of how and what factors can influence the acceptance of new goods, particularly from the perspective of 5G technology products. The findings support the judgments of Wang et al. (2016), which found that environmental awareness and safety concerns might considerably impact attitude and subsequent behavioral intentions. According to this study, consumers consider health concerns necessary when purchasing a product or service. Research shows that the level of consumption of 5G technology products in China positively correlates with buyer income levels (Shah et al., 2021). Though most users may have recognized no health problems with 5G technology, they still do not purchase it as they are lavish compared to the 4G technology that is inexpensive and easily available.
Furthermore, different disciplines have employed affordances as a theoretical foundation (Sun et al., 2019). In this study, 5G technology also adopts the affordances perspective because it helps to assess both the consumer perception and 5G technology features as a whole. As a result of the scarcity of research on this issue, the contribution of this work is significant. Although studies in the literature show that availability has a secondary impact on purchase intention, there is no research on the direct impact of availability on consumer innovation. Also, the mediating effect of environmental awareness and safety concerns on 5G item purchase intentions is an entirely novel and validated assumption. Therefore the current study results will significantly improve the existing body of knowledge.
6.2 Managerial and policy-making implications
Our research not only increases the literature but also has managerial implications for policy-makers interested in encouraging the use of 5G technology. First, we believe that marketing variables significantly impact consumers’ innovativeness. As a result, businesses and policy-makers should increase the guidance and visibility of 5G goods to assist consumers in understanding the relative benefits of 5G products, resulting in favorable views toward 5G products. Second, environmental awareness and safety concern significantly impact the purchasing intention of 5G products. To attract the attention of innovative consumers, enterprises should share information about the latest environmentally friendly technologies used to create 5G products. For this purpose, businesses should devise various marketing techniques depending on the qualities of their consumers. Marketers and manufacturers must remain vigilant to maintain the quality of 5G products, and they should also react accordingly to minimize buyers’ risk perceptions if such issues arise. Third, based on our empirical investigations and innovation diffusion theory, consumers perceived 5G technology as innovative, which will increase users’ practical proficiencies. The health issue is the crucial factor that hurts consumption. As a result, aggressive marketing practices can be introduced to raise consumer awareness of the health and other environmental benefits of 5G technology, influencing purchase intent. For instance, they can cooperate with prominent medical professionals to provide testimony about 5G products and persuade people that this technology will not harm health.
Furthermore, practitioners have emphasized that this technology is a disruptive breakthrough that will alter user behavior and industrial patterns. This disparity between consumer and producer views of 5G is unfavorable for promoting the 5G market spread and activating consumer demand. As a result, businesses and governments should concentrate on changing consumer views of 5G technology and supporting creative 5G services and applications. 5G innovation can boost the market, develop strategic prospects, and reshape the competitive landscape. Users usually like novel technology products but use them less commonly. As a result, designers or pioneers of 5G technology products must be aware of the factors that may influence consumers’ decisions to acknowledge them. This study provides evidence for the role of these variables in encouraging users to accept 5G technology. The outcomes of the current study give valuable suggestions through which administrators can boost user trust by optimizing affordances. Furthermore, before consumer purchases a product, there is an assessment period. At this level, enhancing the availability of relevant information and guidance to consumers will raise their intent. A good association between various characteristics of affordance was discovered in the current investigation. As a result, practitioners’ investments in 5G technology can boost affordance. The primary goal of this study is to inspire and motivate academics and professionals to investigate and take responsibility for the Covid-19 epidemic as a transformative opportunity for innovative product creation and management. According to Rahmat et al. (2022), they must rewire their thoughts to create and carry out research. Innovative products and services are beneficial to address the global situation. Institutions should reevaluate and restructure their criteria and standards to drive and assess the research goal, function, and consequences.
Additionally, crises present chances for faster technical development, transformation, and innovation. The development and use of new technologies are key factors in the stability and expansion of the economy (Li et al., 2021). Information and communication technologies (ICTs) play a significant role in the growth of the global economy. ICTs are the main driver of economic growth and competitiveness in emerging economies. Research on the growth of information technology frequently concentrates on a select few developed countries. If a country lacks capital and raw materials, this article’s findings will help policy-makers realize that active 5G development is the best method to promote social welfare. Consequently, ICT clustering may be seen as a new form of human capital-based rivalry.
7 Conclusions, limitations, and future research directions
This article fills in the literature gap by exploring the impact of visibility and guidance availability on innovativeness. Further environmental awareness and safety concerns are correlated with consumer innovativeness and purchase intention. We examine the process of tying VA, GA, EA, SC, and CI to 5G product CPI to transform as many users as possible into early adopters of 5G goods. We found that the visibility and guidance affordances characteristics enhance consumer innovativeness. Similarly, the environmental awareness and safety concern variables mediate the relationship between innovativeness and intention for 5G items. Our results contribute to a deeper understanding of consumer ingenuity’s role in driving 5G adoption. In our opinion, policy-makers and managers should alter their marketing tactics initiatives to speed up the adoption of 5G goods. In the framework of COVID-19, the countries are re-opening the economy so that people may restore their usual way of life because they now have control systems in place to reduce the growth of COVID19. Each nation’s healthcare system needs to be armed with cutting-edge solutions to properly handle any new issues to avoid future “re-emergence” of the illness. 5G technologies are significant in this regard. Despite its significant contributions, our research contains a few limitations. First and foremost, the link between innovativeness and intention is the subject of our article. However, there is often a disconnect between intentions and actions. Because of this constraint, future studies can assess our results in real-life situations. Second, our conclusions are grounded on cross-sectional data, even though we used a marker variable to evaluate common method bias. The mediation analysis suggests possible causation, and we may test our model using longitudinal data in the future. Furthermore, this study is based on 5G technology in China; many other developed and developing countries have not yet installed this technology as most economies are still using 4G. Therefore a comparative study between 4G and 5G economies should be done in the future.
Data availability statement
The data analyzed in this study is subject to the following licenses/restrictions: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Requests to access these datasets should be directed to skifss_20@qq.com.
Ethics statement
Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent from the participants was not required to participate in this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.
Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.
Funding
This research was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China under grant No. 71672004 and the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy Sciences as part of the research project VEGA No. 1/0590/22.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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Keywords: 5G Technology, consumer’s innovativeness, environmental awareness, safety concerns, affordances
Citation: Shah SK, Tang Z, Gavurova B, Oláh J and Acevedo-Duque Á (2022) Modeling consumer’s innovativeness and purchase intention relationship regarding 5G technology in China. Front. Environ. Sci. 10:1017557. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2022.1017557
Received: 12 August 2022; Accepted: 14 September 2022;
Published: 30 September 2022.
Edited by:
J. Abbas, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, ChinaReviewed by:
Sayed Muhammad Fawad Sharif, Northwestern Polytechnical University, ChinaJawad Abbas, Near East University, Cyprus
Copyright © 2022 Shah, Tang, Gavurova, Oláh and Acevedo-Duque. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Sayed Kifayat Shah, c2tpZnNzXzIwQHFxLmNvbQ==; Zhongjun Tang, dGFuZ3pob25nanVuQGJqdXQuZWR1LmNu; Judit Oláh, b2xhaC5qdWRpdEBlY29uLnVuaWRlYi5odSYjeDAyMDBhOw==; Ángel Acevedo-Duque, YW5nZWwuYWNldmVkb0B1YXV0b25vbWEuY2w=