The Role of Facial Enhancement Technology in Online Sales of Branded Color Cosmetics [védés előtt]

The Role of Facial Enhancement Technology in Online Sales of Branded Color Cosmetics This is an article-based dissertation. The author conducted three published studies to support this dissertation during her PhD studies. It includes three quantitative studies. The purpose of this dissertation is multifold: First, to explore the factors that may contribute to FET adoption. Second, to investigate the extent to which FET adoption contributes to subsequent online purchases (i.e., color cosmetics). Despite its strategic importance, the existing body of literature specifically discussing the essential role of AR-based FET on consumers’ behavioral intentions is still scarce (Javornik, 2016; Wang et al., 2022). Additionally, the customers’ adoption rate of FET is still relatively low with an unproven conversion rate on a mass scale (Monteros, 2021). The mechanisms by which users adopt FET and whether FET contributes to the online purchase intention of branded color cosmetics are still less explored. To interconnect these three studies, the dissertation adopts the UTAUT theoretical model as the foundational framework, which was utilized in Study 3. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) developed by Venkatesh et al. (2003) is one of the most popular theories for explaining behavioral intentions to adopt new technology. The primary contribution of this dissertation is to extend the traditional UTAUT model (Venkatesh et al., 2003) and apply it in the context of FET. More specifically, UTAUT is used as a baseline model in this dissertation since it can be leveraged to examine determinants of AI adoption (Venkatesh, 2022) such as FET. In this dissertation, the author primarily employed a quantitative online survey as the core research methodology, employing purposive and snowball sampling techniques for data collection. The sample populations varied across the studies: Study 1 focused on Chinese social media influencers (N=221), Study 2 on Indonesian FET users (N=262), and Study 3 on Chinese FET ...