From traditional wristwatch to smartwatch: Understanding the relationship between innovation attributes, switching costs and consumers' switching intention.

Smartwatches are one of the most disruptive innovations of the past decade. However, these hi-tech gadgets fail to attract interest in the same way as smartphones, or tablet PCs. Despite optimistic market growth forecasts, smartwatches have not taken the place of traditional wristwatches until today, and the number of people who use traditional wristwatches outnumbered those who use smartwatches. This study is thus motivated to examine the factors that affect traditional wristwatch users' intentions to switch to smartwatches. Based on the Diffusion of Innovations Theory, a research model was developed involving perceived product lifetime, financial switching costs, and procedural switching costs. The proposed model was then empirically evaluated using survey data collected from 234 actual traditional wristwatch users about their perception of switching intentions to smartwatches. The findings revealed that relative advantage and financial switching costs significantly influence traditional wristwatch users' behavioral intentions to switch to smartwatches. Furthermore, financial switching costs mediated the effects of relative advantage and perceived product lifetime on the switching intention. Surprisingly, perceived product lifetime, complexity, and procedural switching costs do not have direct impacts on switching intention. • Relative advantage increases traditional wristwatch users' intention to switch to the smartwatch. • Complexity does not significantly influence the intention to switch to the smartwatch. • Financial switching costs are barriers to switch to smartwatch. • Perceived product lifetime is positively associated with financial switching costs. Mehmet Cem BÖLEN: Dr. Mehmet Cem BÖLEN is an assistant professor at Open Education Faculty, Ataturk University, Turkey. He has conducted research on post-adoption behavior in the fields of e-learning and mobile commerce. His research work has been published or accepted in international journals and conferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]