ELUCIDATING FACTORS AFFECTING PARENTAL ADOPTION INTENTION OF IOT ENABLED CHILD SMART TRACKING WEARABLES

With the growing concerns around child safety, IoT enabled child tracking wearables offers a smart and practical solution for parental supervision and child protection. These smart technology devices utilize GPS and wireless connectivity to offer real time location monitoring and safety alerts. Understanding the growing need of such child safety technologies, this study investigates the factors that influences intention of parents to adopt IoT enabled child smart tracking wearables. Mixed Method approach was used to explore the factors that influences the choice of parents to adopt smart wearables for their kid’s safety. For developing the initial framework of the study, six in-depth interviews were conducted, wherein four mothers and two fathers were interviewed to understand what drives them to use the CGM trackers based smart wearables for their kids. Each interview lasted for 40-50 mins. Post that a rigorous review of past literature was done providing a strong base for developing the research model and identify the indicators for the survey instrument. Inputs from 346 parent (mothers or fathers), was generated and used for study. The integrated model developed for the study was adopted from theories of TAM, UTAUT and Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and was adjusted to sync with the context of smart wearables for child safety. It consisted of seven latent constructs influencing the attitude of parents for the smart wearables, which in turns influences the adoption intention of parents. All the seven constructs Performance Expectancy, Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Reliability, Compatibility & Integration, Trust, Parental Anxiety, Social Influence were found to positively influence the attitude towards wearables and their adoption intention. Technology Innovativeness and Cost Factor were significantly moderating the adoption intention of the parents. The study revealed that Parental Anxiety, Perceived Reliability and Performance Expectancy were the key drivers of parental intention to adopt the IoT enabled child wearables to monitor and track their kids’ activity and movement. The research results offer inputs for the Wearable manufacturers to design very reliable, secure and user-friendly child tracking smart wearables. Also, it offers a practical guide to marketers and policy makers to focus on the key drivers like Perceived Reliability and Performance Expectancy to enhance the adoption rate of the child safety technologies.