Factors Affecting the Adoption of Self-Service Technology (SST) in the Public Sector: An Empirical Examination of Housing Corporations

1. Introduction

Although e-government services tend to boost public value (Valle-Cruz, 2019), there is a lack of dissemination of these type of (Lopes, Macadar, & Luciano, 2019). This study focuses on a specific type of e-service, namely self-service technology (SST). Moreover, it examines this technology in a specific public sector, the housing sector. Investments in enabling technology-based self-service has risen in the public housing sector (Veuger & Chafia, 2018). Housing corporations have enthusiastically adopted self-service technologies (SSTs) to support various types of (Roach & Beddeau, 2015). For instance, when scheduling a repair request or cancellation of the rental agreement, SSTs serve as an alternative or replacement for personal contact by phone or at the counter. In general, the benefits of the adoption of SSTs include labor cost reduction over time (Chang & Yang, 2008) and improvement in consumer service and operational efficiency (Curran & Meuter, 2005). Despite the increasing investments and ambitions, the housing sector remains lacking behind in the penetration of SSTs and its usage by the tenants (Veuger & Chafia, 2018).

Hitherto, empirical research on the adoption of SSTs has primarily focused on SSTs in the airline industry (Chang & Yang, 2008), the banking sector (Proença & Antónia Rodrigues, 2011), the retail context (Weijters, Rangarajan, Falk, & Schillewaert, 2007; Wang M., 2012; Demoulin & Djelassi, 2016), and the hotel industry (Oh, Jeong, & Baloglu, 2013). Motivations by the customers of housing corporations could however differ from customers in these contexts, specially as tenants of housing corporations tend to be lower income groups with also a lower educational level. Veuger & Chafia (2018) already indicated a difference in behavior with regard to digital services when municipalities are compared to banks. This is supported by Kaushik, Agrawal and Rahman (2015) who found different attitudes of customers towards different SSTs. Moreover, these studies are conducted in contexts that already have a strong self-service penetration. The self-service concept is still in its infancy in the housing sector. Against this background, the objective of the present study is to explore the customers’ motivations of using SSTs in the context of the Dutch public housing sector. Subsequently, the following research question is formulated:

This research pursues this question by utilizing the rigorous model of acceptance of SSTs developed through a meta-analysis (Blut, Wang, & Schoefer, 2016) and applying it in the context of the Dutch public housing sector. An empirical examination among 1209 tenants of four housing associations is conducted. This study aims to provide managers and policymakers with insights into how to address customer satisfaction and usage behavior with self-service technology.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows, the next section presents the literature and conceptual framework for the study, including the development of hypotheses. The third section describes the methodology of the empirical study. The results are presented in the fourth section. The fifth section discusses the findings in the context of the extant literature. The paper concludes with a summary of the major findings, the managerial implications, and the limitations of the study.

2. Conceptual Framework

This research adopts the model as proposed by Blut, Wang, & Schoefer (2016) to serve as a foundation in order to investigate acceptance of different SST types. Blut et al. (2016) conducted a meta-analysis of the factors that influence customer acceptance of SSTs. Their model is based on several acceptance models including the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM; Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT; Venkatesh, Thong, & Xu, 2012). The conceptual framework of this study is illustrated in Figure 1.