"It's practical, but no more controllable": Social representations of the electronic purse in Austria

Author(s)

Elfriede Penz, Katja Meier-Pesti, Erich Kirchler

Abstract

The electronic purse (chip-card) is promoted as an option offering consumers an easy means of payment. It also offers advantages to traders and banks by reducing transaction costs. However, successful launching of the electronic purse depends mainly on consumers' acceptance, which in the past was very low in Austria. We study consumers' acceptance of the electronic purse, cash and established non-cash payment systems by analysing social representations of payment facilities. Semantic contents of associations raised in response to the stimulus words "means of payment in general", "cash", "cheque", "ATM-card", "credit-card" and "electronic purse" have been analysed. Overall, 264 people were studied applying two techniques: the "associative network" and the "conceptual network". It is shown that means of payment are categorised on two dimensions: cash and non-cash. Non-cash payment facilities are characterised by high abstraction levels, and loss of subjective control over expenditures. The electronic purse is perceived as highly dissimilar to other means of payments. 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Organisation(s)

Journal

Journal of Economic Psychology

Volume

25

Pages

771-787

No. of pages

17

ISSN

0167-4870

Publication date

2004

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

5010 Psychology

Portal url

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/its-practical-but-no-more-controllable-social-representations-of-the-electronic-purse-in-austria(b4785084-73e8-47c6-844a-cce1969d3ae1).html