BREAKING THE VIRTUAL WALL: WHY BUSINESSES RESIST METAVERSE IN THE RETAIL INDUSTRY?

While the metaverse is considered the next big thing associated with the information system ecosystem, this disruptive technology has not been widely adopted by many of the enterprises to date. Given its potential to drive the success of businesses as evidence across literature, this study aims to investigate retail enterprises’ non-adoption intentions toward the metaverse. The Technology, Organisation, and Environment (TOE) framework is used as an underpinning theory to examine the impact of various barriers on non-adoption intention towards the metaverse. Data were collected from 400 large- and medium-sized retail enterprises in China and analysed using partial least-squares structural equation models (PLS-SEM) to ensure reliability and test hypotheses. The findings indicate that both technological barriers (i.e., perceived complexity and perceived risk), organisational barriers (i.e., a lack of top management support), and environmental barriers (i.e., a lack of governance and standardisation) were found to have a significant effect on resistance to the adoption of the metaverse in retailing, which in turn significantly influenced non-adoption intentions. It is believed that the findings from this study will provide a better understanding of the metaverse's adoption from a business organisation's perspective and its impact on related stakeholders.