Impact of technology, health and consumer-related factors on continued usage intention of wearable fitness tracking (WFT) devices

• Published in: Benchmarking : an international journal 2023-12, Vol.30 (9), p.3444-3464
• Main Authors: Puri, Sandeep, Pandey, Shweta, Chawla, Deepak
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Autonomy; Consumers; Context; Developing countries; Devices; Diet; Effectiveness; Empirical analysis; Exercise; Gender; Health care; Health care industry; Health services; Industrialized nations; Internet of Things; LDCs; Objectives; Physical fitness; Preventive medicine; Profitability; Scandals; Self-efficacy; Smartwatches; Sports facilities; Technology Acceptance Model; Technology adoption; Tracking devices; Wearable computers; Wearable technology
• ISSN: 1463-5771; 1758-4094
• DOI: 10.1108/BIJ-12-2020-0647

PurposeThis paper aims to explore factors impacting wearable fitness tracking (WFT) device continued usage intention from perspectives of technology attributes (autonomy benefits), health attributes (self-health management benefits, diet-control benefits and health self-efficacy), and consumer attributes (age, gender, technological innovativeness, symbolic benefits, social benefits and hedonic benefits).Design/methodology/approachThe study integrates constructs from the technology acceptance theories and the health promotion model to develop the research model and hypothesis. The empirical analysis was conducted using data from 217 respondents from India. Logistic regression was used to identify factors that discriminate between groups with low and high continued usage intentions.FindingsResults indicate higher continued usage intention for WFT devices is driven by perceived benefits-health, autonomy, social and hedonic, and individual characteristics-technological innovativeness and perceived health self-efficacy. Further, perceived symbolic benefits, diet control benefits, age, and gender does not discriminate between the groups with low and high continued usage intentions.Research limitations/implicationsThe results may be limited to the context of the sample and the factors considered. The study suggests future research areas.Practical implicationsThe paper offers insights for marketers, governments, insurance firms, and related healthcare services on promoting higher usage of WFT devices to yield dual benefits of preventive healthcare and higher profitability.Originality/valueThe study extends existing research by examining factors across consumer, health, and technological domains in a single framework and adds to the limited research in the context of usage of WFT devices in developing countries.