Exploring consumer mobile payment innovations: An investigation into the relationship between coping theory factors, individual motivations, social influence and word of mouth

This study incorporates the social influence with the conceptualizations from the coping theory to investigate tourists' disposition towards mobile payment system (MPS). The data from 355 tourists who used MPS to make tourism-related payments have been collected using purposive sampling. The partial least squared structural equation modeling results suggested that perceived value, threat, controllability, and social influence affect tourists' MPS usage intention. It has been further stemmed that the tourist's intent to use MPS also recommend it to others. Nevertheless, a second study has been conducted to achieve generalizable results; additionally, the technology readiness index was integrated into the existing model as a moderator. Data has been collected again from a different group of tourists meeting the criteria, and 377 responses have been received. The results revalidated the earlier findings of study 1; moreover, results suggest that the optimism of the tourist does not play its role in encouraging them to share their experience. However, innovativeness moderates the relationship between intention and word of mouth. Moreover, PLS-Predict depicted substantial predictive power of the model, and importance and performance analysis revealed usage intention is the most crucial driver for determining word of mouth. This study contributes to academic research by combining coping theory and social influence and investigating the moderating role of technology readiness in molding tourists' word-of-mouth behavior for MPS. The study's findings can be helpful for travel operators and banks in increasing tourists' intention and recommendation behavior regarding their usage of MPS.