Criticality of the third-party partnership in the UTAUT2 framework: an empirical examination of restaurant self-service technology applications

This study aims to examine the critical role of the third-party partnership and extend the Extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) framework for restaurant customers’ adoption of self-service technologies (SSTs). The study employs a systematic process and develops a full set of scales for constructing the third-party partnership. In addition, this study collects two sets of data for analysis purposes, with one from during the COVID-19 lockdown period and the other from the post-COVID-19 lockdown period. It uses comparison analysis in addition to PLS-SEM for model testing. Findings revealed that the third-party partnership significantly impacts perceived brand image both during and post-COVID-19 lockdown periods. In contrast, UTAUT2 factors (i.e., performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation, and habit) have positive effects only on the perceived brand image during the post-COVID 19 lockdown period. The perceived brand image mediates between the third-party partnership and word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviors during and post-COVID-19 lockdown periods; in contrast, in the post-COVID-19 lockdown period, perceived brand image mediated the effects of UTAUT 2 factors on WOM behaviors and intentions to pay a premium price. This study contributes to the knowledge on restaurant brand image through the study of brand image from the perspective of technology applications, that is, by conducting an assessment of technology applications that combined UTAUT2 with third-party partnership SSTs regarding customers’ brand image identification in the restaurant industry.