شکاف انتظار، نارضایتی پیش بینی شده و قصد رفتاری در زمینه تکامل سریع فناوری Expectations gap, anticipated regret, and behavior intention in the context of rapid technology evolvement

Introduction Rapid improvement of new technology based on information technology (IT) is being carried out. However, expectations on such innovative technological improvement can be a factor that leads to the delay of consumer decision to make the purchase or not. As soon as new IT products such as TV or computer are available, one can often see that the prices of these products plummet or the consumers have opportunities to buy products with good specifications and friendlier prices. In general, consumers make purchasing decisions based on the expected benefits or values created by using the product (Fred D Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989; Oliver, 1980). If an improved product is not scheduled to be introduced in the near future, the cost of the product and the expected benefits of using it would be the consumer’s main deciding factor. However, consumer behavior would be affected by future expectations when the consumers know from multiple channels that the future product would be a significant improvement of the current one. Such a phenomenon is expected to be much more apparent for IT-based products that evolve very fast. The regret theory well explains the decision making process that considers future alternatives. According to the regret theory, anticipated emotion arises when the unselected alternative is compared to the value of the alternative that has been selected, and this leads to consumer behavior (Sheeran & Orbell, 1999; Simonson, 1992; M. Zeelenberg, 1999). The regret theory has been studied as a way to explain decision making under uncertainties (Loomes & Sugden, 1982; M. Zeelenberg, 1999) and has been used as a major theory to explain human behavior in the areas of health or welfare (Abraham & Sheeran, 2004; Conner, Sandberg, McMillan, & Higgins, 2006). In addition, there are multiple studies that incorporate anticipated regret as a new construct of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) framework (Sandberg & Conner, 2008; Sheeran & Orbell, 1999).