User Acceptance of Internet of Vehicles Services: Empirical Findings of Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and Fuzzy Sets Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA)

Recently, IoV-based services and vehicles have come to the forefront as part of the growing market for the automobile industry. Since IoV-based services and vehicles were introduced, they have been expected to grow rapidly. However, contrary to optimistic expectations for future market growth, the IoV-based services and vehicles market has appeared to hit a roadblock and remains at an early market stage. Therefore, research of the determinants leading to consumers' intention to accept and purchase IoV-based services and vehicles is significant for either academics or practitioners. Drawing upon the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology acceptance model (UTAUT2), the perceived risk theory, and the initial trust model, we developed an integrated conceptual model and explored what and how various determinant antecedent conditions fit together on consumer intention to accept IoV-based services and vehicles. The proposed model and hypotheses were assessed by both symmetric (partial least square structural equation modeling, PLS-SEM) and asymmetric (fsQCA) approaches using online survey datasets with 362 Chinese consumers. The findings suggest that PLS-SEM and fsQCA are complementary analytical techniques providing comparable results. PLS-SEM results indicate that performance expectancy, price value, habit, and initial trust have significant effects on behavioral intention to accept IoV services. Despite other determinants, e.g., effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, and perceived risk, have no significant effect. FsQCA results reveal twelve different configurations of determinants resulting in a high level of behavioral intention to accept IoV services, and eight causal paths equifinally leading to the negation of behavioral intention to accept IoV services. These findings suggest that several conditions that were not significant in PLS-SEM are sufficient conditions when combined with other conditions. This study enriches relevant research studies on IoV-based services acceptance and provides relevant insights and marketing suggestions for incentivizing consumers to accept the IoV-based services.