Consumer’s acceptance of Mobile Health Technologies in Germany

Abstract

Executives within the pharmaceutical industry expect digital health to spur new business segments to action, while mobile health will serve as an activator for change. Whereas technology adoption from a physician's perspective has already been frequently examined, little has been done to identify factors that determine consumers' intention to adopt a mobile health technology. After an extensive literature review, this work adopts the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and extends that model to include constructs of negative utility that might prevent adoption. The research setting is the German market, hence data from German consumers was collected through an online survey (n=289). Findings from a PLS-SEM indicate that Self-Efficacy is an antecedent of Effort-Expectancy, and that the constructs of Performance Expectancy, Social Influence, Facilitating Conditions and Surveillance Anxiety significantly impact consumer's intention to adopt m-health technologies.The study contributes to research on users' acceptance of mobile health on the European continent. Moreover, the results do provide m-health developers, marketers and managers with insights on what determines consumers' acceptance of these applications. In practical terms, the products' utilitarian features should be stressed and early adopters targeted, to foster word-of-mouth, which will ultimately lead to stronger behavioural intention of adopting m-health technologies.

Date of Award	28 Jul 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Boris Durisin (Supervisor)