Editorial

Citation

Eriksson, K. and Estelami, H. (2015), "Editorial", International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 33 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-01-2015-0010

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Bank Marketing, Volume 33, Issue 2.

This Issue of the International Journal of Bank Marketing (IJBM) contains research on the role of technology, the impact of human psychology on financial decision making, Islamic banking and banking in non-western markets. All these areas are important for bank markets, and consequently also of great relevance to bank marketing research.

The paper “Innovation adoption across self-service banking technologies in India” by Arun Kumar Kaushik and Zillur Rahman analyzes antecedents to the attitudes and adoption of self-service technologies. The research is based on data from a pilot study of 130 bank customers, a large-scale online survey of 2,000 respondents, and an additional survey of 262 consumers. Most of the respondents are residents of larger cities in India. The study finds interesting differences between usage of ATMs, phone banking, and self-service kiosks. For instance, perceived risk is most notable in phone banking. Perceived usefulness and ease of use are more important for ATM and self-service kiosk use. This finding suggests that Indian bank customers perceive that security is important in phone banking, and that ease of use and perceived usefulness are more important for ATMs and self-service kiosks. Banks that do business in India can structure their operations based on the findings reported in this research.

The second paper in this Issue of IJBM examines the relationship between individuals’ personality traits and sellers’ service offerings. The paper “Customer personality and relationship satisfaction: empirical evidence from Indian banking sector” by Vishal Mishra and Sridhar Vaithianathan provides interesting insights into this topic. It is a study of 428 customers in India which finds significant relationships between a customer’s personality traits and how prone the customer is to engage in a relationship with a bank. Findings show that extroversion, conscientiousness, and openness are personality traits of customers who are most likely to engage in relationship banking.

Islamic banking continues to grow both as a business and as a research field. The paper “Consumer attitudes and purchase intentions toward Islamic banks: the influence of religiosity” by Nizar Souiden and Marzouki Rani, adds new knowledge in this area. The study is based on analysis of two sets of data in Tunisia. The first is a sample of 188 respondents, which was used for scale development. The second is the main data collection, which consists of 217 respondents. The researchers find a differentiated model of religious influence on Islamic banking. Religious beliefs are found more important than religious involvement for purchase intentions with Islamic banks.

Mobile banking continues to grow very fast. The paper “Mobile banking – a fashionable concept or an institutionalized channel in future retail banking? Analyzing patterns in the practical and academic mobile banking literature” by Florian Moser analyzes texts written in academia and practice over the past 13 years. The analysis shows that the discourse on mobile banking has shifted over the years, from a more speculative perspective to a more substantive one. The author also finds that there may be a reason to consider linking mobile banking with social networks, especially in light of the massive market utilization of social media.

The final paper in this Issue of IJBM recognizes that the adoption of internet banking in Arab countries has been under-researched. The paper “Challenges of adoption of internet banking services in Yemen”, by Ali Saleh Al-Ajam and Khalil Md Nor addresses this shortcoming. In this study 1,500 bank customers in Yemen are surveyed and structural equations modeling is used to analyze the collected data. The findings show that customer attitudes, subjective norms, and technology readiness influences a customer’s behavioral intentions toward the use of internet banking services. The results also confirm that theories on internet bank adoption are applicable in Yemen.

As bank markets mature all across the world, it is clear that the accumulating knowledge from research studies can generalize to many different countries, even when there are big differences in culture and context. It is also clear that cultural and market variations provide opportunities to further develop new avenues for research, so that research findings can be applied to other contexts. This becomes increasingly important with globalization, and is also a fundamental indicator of the field of inquiry – in this case that of bank marketing – maturing and growing to become a formal platform for scientific inquiry.

Kent Eriksson and Hooman Estelami