The future is in the (h)air. A qualitative study examining the decision-making process of hair salon owners to adopt digital communication technologies for their hair salon.

The rise of new technologies and a shift towards digitization has led to a technological retail revolution which stimulated the increase of media technologies available for retail experiences. As a consequence, digital communication technologies such as social media platforms, tablets, mobile phones, window screens, websites, and webshops have become more important than ever before and are increasingly adopted by hair salon owners for internal and external purposes. Earlier academic research has identified four main drivers that hair salon owners and managers consider during the decision-making process of adopting a digital communication technology. Two of these identified drivers, being the Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use of a technology, derive from the Technology Acceptance Model, a model that explains a user’s technology acceptance process. Further, the potential business (dis)advantages and threats that are considered by hair salon owners are linked to the driver business considerations. Likewise, the last driver, being creative considerations, is also recognized as an important driver within the adoption process of a digital communication technology. This current research aims to examine how hair salon owners decide to adopt a digital communication technology for their hair salons. By conducting a qualitative research based on nine semi-structured expert interviews, this research paper aims to investigate how hair salon owners decide to adopt digital communication technologies for hair salons. Results have shown that three out of four drivers are recognized to be important factors during the decision-making process, whereas there is one driver that is unconsciously considered by the hair salon owners. Further, hair salon owners affirmed that offering an omnichannel shopping experience by utilizing digital communication technologies has lead to various financial business benefits, such as a bigger reach and an increase in product sales. With this, the majority of hair salon owners acknowledged the importance of creativity within the hair salon, thereby arguing that service-oriented creativity and organization-oriented creativity are regarded as equally important as they complement each other. Remarkably, findings have shown that seven out of nine participants perceived the technology as easy to use before adoption, but this positive perceived ease of use changed after adoption for four participants as they stated that the technology was in reality rather hard to use. In conclusion, the findings derived from the interviews show that the four drivers specified in earlier research are also considered to be important factors to consider during the decision-making process of adopting a technology. The four drivers are thereby also recognized as factors to measure whether the adopted technology can be considered as successful and valuable for the salon.