Title: RFID acceptance amongst customers: a cross-cultural framework based on Hofstede

Authors: Alessandra Vecchi, Louis Brennan, Aristeidis Theotokis

Addresses: School of Business, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland; London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, 20 John Princes Street, London, W1G 0BJ, UK. ' School of Business, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland. ' Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics & Business, Eltrun Research Center 47A Evelpidon & 33 Lefkados Str., 113 62, Athens, Greece

Abstract: Cultural variations across countries are considered a major factor affecting customers| readiness to adopt, willingness to use, or evaluation of technology. Relevant contributions from marketing studies, computer science and international business are integrated into the literature of cross-cultural management and technology acceptance, and a conceptual model is developed. Drawing on a broader research project on RFID aimed at supporting intelligent business networking and innovative customer services, the development of the framework is informed by the authors| work in the preparation of a RFID based application at several established grocery retailers for short life products in Ireland and in Greece. From the findings of our exploratory study it emerges that low individualism and high uncertainty avoidance are conducive to greater customers| acceptance of new service technologies. Managerial implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: technology acceptance; RFID; radio frequency identification; Geert Hofstede; cross-cultural frameworks; cultural variations; customer behaviour; marketing; computer science; international business; intelligent business networking; innovation; customer services; retail industry; grocery retailers; grocers; food retailing; shops; short life products; Ireland; Greece; low individualism; high uncertainty; new technology; service technologies; managerial implications; culture; customer relationship management; e-CRM; electronic CRM.

DOI: 10.1504/IJECRM.2010.035964

International Journal of Electronic Customer Relationship Management, 2010 Vol.4 No.3, pp.228 - 251

Published online: 11 Oct 2010 *

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