Mid Sweden University

PurposeBased on the dialogue, access, risk and transparency (DART) model and bank customers' experiences of financial service failure, this study aims to propose a research model as part of a conceptual framework. The framework includes a barrier, co-destruction and resistance, and the study identifies the attributes mediating barriers and resistance to full-adoption of digital payment methods (DPMs).Design/methodology/approachThis study applied a traditional netnographic approach by collecting and analysing approximately 1,000 comments about service failure on the social media posts of a major Swedish and a major German retail bank. The data were parallel coded, manually and by ChatGPT (versions 3.5 and 4o mini), in an attempt to validate the findings.FindingsBased on the DART model, the four linked attributes (i.e. monologue, uncertainty, restriction and ambiguity) created the MURA model as part of the barrier, co-destruction and resistance framework. The MURA model may mediate the access barrier and resistance to the potential full adoption of DPMs. Despite different digital payment contexts, both the Swedish and German bank customers have experienced all four attributes related to value co-destruction, indicating their temporary vulnerability.Originality/valueThis study breaks new ground regarding applied method and theory, being among the few using a traditional netnographic approach in the digital banking context. It also identifies new attributes, develops a reversed DART model and proposes a conceptual framework of value co-destruction related to DPM full-adoption.

It is just the beginning of adoption and implementation of Metaverse (i.e., threedimensional virtual reality replicating the real-world interactions) in the banking sector. Retail banks such as J.P. Morgan have already massively investedresources to buy a space in the Metaverse (Sahoo & Ray, 2023). Considering the rapid digitalisation of financial services, Metaverse adoption comes together with artificial intelligence (AI) adoption. Previous studies (e.g., Hari et al., 2022; Lappeman et al., 2022) highlighted the use of AI such as chatbots in various services, including digital banking. Mozafari et al. (2022) investigated how the bot nature of service chatbots disclosure influence customers experience. Thishighlights the inability of customers to distinguish between an AI bot and a human being. Moving from chat to Metaverse service support, AI chatbots could be replaced by AI assistants (i.e. voice-based machine learning service support). The purpose of this study is, therefore, to reveal how bank customers experience the AI assistant in the Metaverse. Immersive netnographic observations followed by immersive interviews conducted in the Metaverse are considered suitable for adeeper understanding of bank customers experiences in the virtual reality context.Particularly, the data (i.e., the users’ conversations with AI assistant) can be collected via recording software and analysed following the Kozinets’ (2022) netnography guideline. This study could help business futurists to implement and manage AI assistants in their customer support giving insights in the AI future scenario.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the relationships between barrier-breakers and customers’ intention to fully adopt digital payment methods (DPMs). Design/methodology/approach: Survey data were analyzed using statistical methods focusing on hypothesis testing with an ordinal regression model and moderation analysis using the PROCESS macro extension. Participants were divided into two groups of customers in Sweden: adopters-accepters, i.e. young bank customers and adopters-resisters, i.e. members of a formally organized group opposed to a cashless society. Findings: The findings revealed that only the credibility barrier-breaker could increase the adopters-accepters’ intention to fully adopt DPMs. Credibility also seemed to be an important barrier-breaker for the adopters-resisters, as were perceived usefulness and social influence. Additional analyses showed that the impersonalization barrier reduces the impact of the barrier-breakers on DPM adoption. Practical implications: Retail banks and merchants can use these results as a guide to what barrier-breakers might affect various customers’ intention to fully adopt DPMs, and to act accordingly. The impersonalization barrier also merits attention when creating an emotional connection to customers who use DPMs. Originality/value: This study provides empirically based knowledge of the influence of barrier-breakers on the intention of customers, categorized as adopters-accepters and adopters-resisters, to fully adopt DPMs, and highlights the importance of maintaining a human touch in the post-COVID-19 digital era. 

The purpose of this study is twofold: to examine the mediating effect of a number of barrier-breakers on the relationship between barriers and the intention to fully adopt digital payment methods; and to identify adopters-resisters' commenting behaviour when facing a full-adoption scenario. Mixed methods were applied. The PROCESS macro method was used to analyse 388 survey responses and test the mediating effects. The main study reveals that the privacy, security, and access barriers can be reduced by increasing the credibility and usefulness barrier-breakers, respectively. However, the impersonalisation barrier is found to be unaffected by the social influence barrier-breaker. Based on 91 collected and analysed comments, the netnographic-based follow-up study identifies social media commenting behaviours caused by a major bank's decision to stop handling cash. Among the more frequent such behaviours are boycotting and aggressive comments.

Digitalisation and the COVID-19 pandemic have accelerated the decrease in demand for cash worldwide. This also concerns Sweden, which might be on its way to being the first cashless country in the world. The idea of a cashless society is motivated by various assumed benefits, although it also entails certain inherent challenges. The overall aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the relationships between barriers to realising a cashless society and the barrier-breakers, respectively, by considering two groups of bank customers, i.e., adopters-accepters and adopters-resisters, and their intention/resistance to fully adopt digital payment methods (DPMs). A supplementary aim is to investigate moderating and mediating effects because those can affect how barriers and barrier-breakers may increase or decrease the intention to adopt DPMs. This doctoral thesis includes four papers, focusing on barriers and the respective barrier-breakers, intention, and resistance. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used, starting with an online questionnaire. This approach combined the questionnaire with netnography in one of the papers, while the last paper is entirely a netnographic study. The results reveal that adopters-accepters perceive privacy and access barriers to be significantly related to the intention to fully adopt DPMs. The adopters-resisters perceive only the impersonalisation barrier as significant. Further tests show that bank customers’ past experience may increase the negative effect of the privacy, access, and impersonalisation barriers on the intention to fully adopt DPMs. Furthermore, both groups highlight the credibility barrier-breaker, and the adopters-resisters also perceive usefulness and social influence as barrier-breakers in relation to the intention to fully adopt DPMs. Additional tests show that the impersonalisation barrier may decrease the positive effect of the barrier-breakers. The thesis also shows that the impersonalisation barrier is hard for adopters-resisters to overcome with the social influence barrier-breaker. In a forced full-adoption scenario, this issue seems to cause negative commenting behaviours. Focusing on the access barrier as a repeatedly crucial issue, adopters-accepters may further experience negative attributes such as monologue, uncertainty, restriction, and ambiguity, which may lead to co-destruction of value and, in turn, to potential resistance to fully adopt DPMs.

Digitalisation and the Covid-19 pandemic have accelerated the decrease in demand for cash worldwide. This also concerns Sweden, which might be on its way to being the first cashless country in the world. The idea of a cashless society is motivated by various assumed benefits, although it also entails certain inherent challenges. The overall aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the relationships between barriers and barrier-breakers, respectively, by considering two groups of bank customers, i.e., adopters-accepters and adopters-resisters, and their intentions to fully adopt digital payment methods. A supplementary aim is to investigate moderating effects, because those can affect how barriers and barrier-breakers may increase or decrease the intention to adopt digital payment methods. The thesis includes two papers, one focusing on barriers and the other on barrier-breakers.

An online questionnaire was sent to the two groups of Swedish bank customers, i.e., young bank customers (representing adopters-accepters) and a social media group of cash advocates called Kontantupproret (representing adopters-resisters). The results reveal that adopters-accepters perceived privacy and access barriers to be significantly related to the intention to fully adopt digital payment methods, while adopters-resisters perceived only the impersonalisation barrier as significant. Moreover, both groups highlighted the credibility barrier-breaker, and the adopters-resisters also perceived usefulness and social influence as barrier-breakers in relation to the intention to fully adopt digital payment methods. Additional tests show that bank customers’ past experience may increase the negative effect of the privacy, access, and impersonalisation barriers on the intention to fully adopt digital payment methods. At the same time, the impersonalisation barrier may decrease the positive effect of the barrier-breakers.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the relationship between a set of functional and social–psychological barriers and bank customers’ intention to fully adopt digital payment methods (DPMs). Design/methodology/approach: The data were collected via an online questionnaire sent to two samples of Swedish bank customers, namely, adopters-accepters (i.e. young bank customers) and adopters-resisters (i.e. a group opposing a cashless society). Hypotheses were tested by applying an ordinal regression model. Findings: Regarding the adopters-accepters, privacy and access barriers can be obstacles to the full adoption of DPMs. The adopters-resisters perceived all five studied barriers as significant, though only the impersonalisation barrier seemed to matter when the barriers were related to their intention to fully adopt DPMs. Moreover, the results suggest that barriers have a stronger negative effect on the intention to fully adopt among those with extensive experience of DPMs. Practical implications: Based on the barriers affecting the intention of particular groups of bank customers to adopt DPMs, banks could implement customised measures to promote the ongoing development of digital financial services. Originality/value: In this under-researched area, this study provides empirical knowledge of the influence of various barriers on the intention of bank customers characterised as adopters-accepters and adopters-resisters to fully adopt DPMs.