A technology readiness-based taxonomy of customers - A replication and extension

Although the service management field has developed and put forward new concepts, we have historically done a less effective job validating these concepts after their introduction. Given this issue, this study attempts to test and extend Parasuraman and Colby's (2001) taxonomy of technology readiness. Their taxonomy (originally developed based on a U.S. sample) was replicated with a U.K. sample. This study's replication partially supports their taxonomy of five types of customers based on their technology beliefs. The author found support for the existence of four of the five original clusters (explorers, pioneers, skeptics, and laggards) but found no evidence of the existence of a fifth segment named paranoids. The author also identifies the themes that underlie the formation of the taxonomy, namely, technophobia and technological positivism. Finally, for each cluster the relationships between technology readiness, demographics, current use, and future adoption of technology-based services are explored and compared.