Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Advanced Research in Management, Business and Finance
Year: 2024
DOI:
[PDF]
Subscription-Based Online Services from an Emerging Country Perspective: The Special Case Of South Africa
Edwin Theron, Caitlin de Lange
ABSTRACT:
The remarkable growth in subscription-based online services (SBOS) globally was fuelled by, amongst others, the proliferation of the Internet and e-commerce (Sharma & Sijariya, 2024). This growth has resulted in service providers focusing on customer loyalty to prevent users of SBOS from switching to competitors. However, loyalty in this lucrative service industry can only be managed once certainty is gained regarding users’ motivations to adopt a willingness to participate in SBOS. Furthermore, managing willingness to adopt SBOS requires the identification of the antecedents of this important construct. The complexity of managing the willingness to adopt SBOS increases when considering the differences between users of SBOS in developed countries as opposed to users from a more emerging country perspective. To answer this question, a literature review identified five key antecedents of willingness to adopt SBOS: convenience, trust, social influence, ease of use and value. Primary research was conducted in a South African environment to reflect customers’ perceptions of emerging countries, targeting South African citizens over 18 who have never used SBOS. A questionnaire was distributed to 500 customers, and the data were statistically analysed through regression analysis. The study’s results were unexpected, with only two of the hypothesised relationships found to be statistically significant. Based on the results, businesses offering SBOS should be cautious when applying the existing literature in all situations since the application of the literature was found to be context specific.
keywords: SBOS; willingness to adopt