Is that authentic or artificial? Understanding consumer perceptions of risk in e‐service encounters

Abstract. As companies race to digitize physical‐based service processes repackaging them as online e‐services, it becomes increasingly important to understand how consumers perceive the digitized e‐service alternative. We theorize that consumers often perceive e‐services as being artificial and non‐authentic, and that consumers must perform this assessment when deciding whether new e‐services are viable alternatives to traditional service methods. This research investigates whether consumer perceptions of artificiality increase perceptions of e‐service risk, which has been shown to hamper consumer acceptance in a variety of online settings. An empirical study operationalized perceived artificiality (PA) within a controlled laboratory experiment that manipulated the risk of a specific e‐service class (e‐payments). For a specific e‐service brand, PA is reduced when the web interface is viewed as easy to use; alternatively, PA is increased when consumers have relatively high risk perceptions about the overall e‐service class. Furthermore, consumers who were rated as information technology innovators had lower overall artificiality perceptions, however, exposure to negatively framed e‐service efficacy information removed this artificiality reducing effect. The theoretical linkages between PA and perceived risk, and the two antecedents – ease of use and e‐service class risk – were confirmed by survey results. The implications of these results for future research as well as the design and marketing of e‐services are examined.