Overview of Wearable Technologies – Project topics materials

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Perceived Enjoyment

The underlying study indicated that, overall, Germans did not perceive smartwatches as enjoyable (total mean = 2.75; total SD = 0.914). This is a noteworthy result as it is also not in accordance with previous research findings (Wu et al., 2016). Similar to the above dimensions the reasons for this discrepancy might be attributed to the fact that different methods were used to ensure that people know what a smartwatch is and that it was worked with samples from different cultures in both studies.
Apart from that, in accordance with the authors’ expectations, it was found that the hedonic dimension PE has a positive influence on the attitudes towards using smartwatches (beta = 0.579; p = 0.00) leading to a support of hypothesis 3b. The results of this thesis’ study align with prior research (Choi & Kim, 2016; Wu et al., 2016) that also found a positive influence of PE on attitude. Furthermore, in line with Choi and Kim (2016) it was also found here that PE has the strongest positive influence – i.e. stronger than perceived usefulness – on the attitude towards using. Consequently, contrary to the assumptions of TAM the hedonic aspects that a use of these devices would entail were found to be more important than the utilitarian aspects for their attitude formation. In that way the findings of this study resemble those of Kranthi and Asraar Ahmed (2018) who found hedonic motivations to have the strongest influence on smartwatch adoption – stronger than the utilitarian dimension. At the same time, they seem to contradict those of Yang et al. (2016) according to which potential users value the utilitarian aspects of wearables devices more than the hedonic ones. A reason for this discrepancy could lie in the fact that contrary to the underlying study, Yang et al. (2016) did not focus on one specific type of wearable device – instead their study examined the acceptance of wearables in general. Therefore, it is possible that respondents did more frequently thought of devices such as fitness or health care trackers which undoubtedly mainly fulfill utilitarian purposes rather than smartwatches when answering their survey. Consequently, this could have led to the result that when asked about wearable devices in general, potential users value their utilitarian aspects more than their hedonic ones – although, as the underlying study suggest, the reverse is true for the specific case of smartwatches.
In addition to the direct influence of PE on the attitude towards using, in line with Ernst and Ernst (2016b) this study also detected an indirect influence of PE on attitude via PU as PE was found to positively influence PU (beta = 0.753; p = 0.00). This led to a support of hypothesis 3a and indicates that in a German market setting the hedonic aspects do not only directly influence potential consumers attitude but they also influence the utilitarian aspects which means that both aspects are not entirely independent of each other; instead there is a relationship and thus also a connection between them.

Design Aesthetics

In the underlying study it became apparent that Germans perceive the overall design of smartwatches as slightly appealing (total mean: 3.19; total SD: 0.853). It would have been interesting to check whether these findings are in accordance with those of previous research. However, as none of the studies that included DA into their research model (Deghani & Kim, 2019; Hsiao & Chen, 2018; Kranthi & Asraar Ahmed, 2018) had provided a mean score for this dimension in their paper, this is not possible.
Furthermore, this research found that DA positively influences the attitude towards using smartwatches (beta value = 0.102; p = 0.006) which leads to a support of hypothesis 4b. This result for a German sample is in line with the findings of Hsiao and Chen (2018) who also detected a positive influence of DA on attitude by sampling Taiwanese potential adopters of smartwatches. Furthermore, it also resembles the findings of Deghani and Kim (2019) who sampled non-users of smartwatches and found a positive influence of DA on the intention to purchase those devices as well as those of Kranthi and Asraar Ahmed (2018) who received the same results for the adoption intention among Indian IT professionals. However, unlike Hsiao and Chen (2018) this study could only find evidence for a weak, yet still significant, effect of DA on attitude. DA could not be regarded to have the strongest direct effect on attitude – instead those of PU and PE were much stronger.
In addition to that, the findings show an indirect influence of DA on the attitude towards using via PE as DA has been detected to positively influence PE (beta value = 0.531; p = 0.00). This led to a support of hypothesis 4a. In that way these findings are in accordance with Yang et al.’s (2016) results on potential users of wearable devices who also found a relationship between the two hedonic dimensions with almost the exact same strength. This indicates that in a German market setting DA positively influences PE in the case of smartwatches.

READ Robot manufacturing and experimental measurements

Purchase Intention

The results show, that Germans do not intend to purchase a smartwatch in the near future (total mean = 1.99; total SD: 1.11). It is also worth mentioning that the most frequent answer for each of the three questions of this dimension had been “strongly disagree”. So contrary to previous market research that underlined a good potential for smartwatches on the German market (Euromonitor International 2018), the results of this study suggest that the opportunities for the German smartwatch market to further grow might be limited. There does not seem to be much potential for smartwatches to be sold in Germany as the vast majority of the respondents did not consider purchasing such a device in the near future. This might explain why, despite all the positive sales trends in the last few years, the penetration rate of wearable devices in Germany is projected to only grow marginally from 7.7% in 2019 to 8.0% in 2023 (Statista, 2019c).

1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem Formulation
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Delimitations
1.5 Contribution to Theory & Practice
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Approach to Literature review
2.2 Overview of Wearable Technologies
2.2.1 Benefits for Consumers
2.2.2 Benefits for Society
2.3 Smartwatches
2.4 Smartwatches on the German Market
2.5 Theoretical Background & Research Model
3 METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Philosophy .
3.2 Research Approach
3.3 Research Purpose
3.4 Research Design and Research Strateg
3.5 Data Collection Method
3.6 Survey Design
3.7 Population and Samplin
3.8 Analyses of Data
3.9 Limitations of Methodology .
3.10 Reliability and Validity
4 EMPIRICAL FINDINGS
4.1 Demographic Sample
4.2 Descriptive Statistics .
4.3 Reliability Analysis
4.4 Factor Analysis .
4.5 Hypotheses Testing
5 DISCUSSION
6 CONCLUSION .
REFERENCES .