Functional, hedonic, and social motivated consumer innovativeness as a driver of word-of-mouth in smart object early adoptions: an empirical examination in two product categories

This research aims to consider, in the context of smart objects, the interplay of motivated consumer innovativeness (MCI), satisfaction, and word-of-mouth (WOM). Following earlier behavioral research through three phases of attitudes (cognition, affection, and conation), the study proposes that functional, hedonic, and social MCI (cognition) are positively related to satisfaction (affection), thus positively influencing WOM engagement (conation). In addition, it is shown that functional and hedonic MCI moderate the relationship between social MCI and satisfaction. Two quantitative studies across two smart object categories (1129 users of wearables and 511 users of smart home objects) highlight that both functional and hedonic MCI positively relate to satisfaction and WOM. Though the effect of social MCI on satisfaction is non-significant for smart home objects and very low for wearables, our findings confirmed that social MCI has an indirect impact on satisfaction through functional and hedonic MCI in both product categories.