Confrontation-coping : A psychological approach to developing market exporting firms' intentions to adopt emerging technologies

Abstract

Based on the cognitive psychology theory of coping, we examined how the ability of developing market firms to confront and cope with advanced market importers' pressure to adopt emerging technologies may influence their adoption of such technologies. We also determined how this relationship is moderated by the disruptive and incremental key features of technology. To do so, we collected survey data via the LinkedIn accounts of Pakistani firms exporting to advanced economies. Our results show that confrontation-coping mediates the influence of importer pressure on exporter intentions to adopt emerging technology. Further, we found the positive effects of such pressure on confrontation-coping to be stronger when the technology is robustly disruptive. We also found that confrontation-coping strongly influences intentions to adopt in the presence of highly incremental technology. Our study makes theoretical contributions to technology adoption research and coping theory, as well as practical contributions to both exporting firms and emerging technology providers. Our findings also have important policy implications.