What Matters the Most? The Key Factors That Lead to a New Service Adoption

Abstract

On the basis of data collected from an online survey, we used regression analysis to empirically identify the key factors leading to consumers' adoption intentions toward a new service, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in the United States. This study makes the following contributions to the literature: 1) Our results suggest that the influence of strong ties (i.e., family and friends) has a more significant impact on consumers' adoption intentions for a new service than that from weak ties. 2) We also find that, for a really new product/service category, such as VoIP service, consumers' trust toward technology (or the product category itself) matters more than their trust toward the sponsoring company. 3) Consumers' trust also has a moderating impact on perceived performance and perceived effort level.