Understanding the role of consumer psychological motives in smart connected objects appropriation: a higher-order PLS-SEM approach

In recent years, the internet of things (IoT) connected devices have obtained a growing interest in both research and practice. Despite the success of these devices, prior literature shows the existence of barriers limiting their mass diffusion. One of the major challenges is about how to integrate smart connected objects in consumers' daily routines, which corresponds to consumer smart connected objects appropriation. However, literature mainly focused on the acceptance context, little research has studied smart connected objects users' appropriation stage. To fill this gap, our research investigates the role of psychological motives in smart connected objects appropriation from a consumer perspective. To test our hierarchical framework, we follow the latest methodological developments about composite-based models and hierarchical component models in Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach. Our study shows evidence that the new developments of PLS-SEM are extremely suitable for analyzing complexities and dynamics in consumer behavior, especially when modelling hierarchical composite-based concepts. The main findings provide meaningful implications for research and practice.