DOES CONSUMER INNOVATIVENESS MATTER? PREDICTING CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR OF A NEW FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Although the benefits of the marriage between Islamic principles of Shari’ah and financial services as a new financial architecture has been well documented, however, its adoption within the industry’s core markets was lower than necessary to move the world’s economic potential. This study proposed consumer innovativeness as a marketing strategy to improve customers’ adoption of the new financial architecture. Using a cross sectional study, a survey questionnaires were distributed among Islamic banking customers in Northern Nigeria and was analyzed using Partial Least Square - structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings indicated that consumer innovativeness, attitude and subjective norm significantly predicted customers’ intention, while perceived behavioral control was found insignificantly related to behavioral intention. Also, consumer innovativeness moderated the relationship between attitude and intention, while evidence for the interaction effect between consumer innovativeness and social norm was not supported. The integration of diffusion of innovation theory and the theory of planned behavior in conceiving and initiating appropriate marketing strategy for the new financial architecture are provided and suggestions for future studies were discussed.