DOES CONSUMER INNOVATIVENESS MATTER? PREDICTING CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR OF A NEW FINANCIAL ARCHITECTURE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Although the benefitsof the marriage between Islamic principles of Shari’ah and financial services as a new financial architecture hasbeen well documented, however, its adoption within the industry’s core markets was lower than necessary to move the world’s economicpotential. This study proposed consumer innovativeness as a marketing strategyto improve customers’ adoption of the new financial architecture. Using a crosssectional study, asurvey questionnaires were distributed among Islamic banking customers inNorthern Nigeria and was analyzed using Partial Least Square - structuralequation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings indicated that consumer innovativeness,attitude and subjective norm significantly predicted customers’ intention,while perceived behavioral control was found insignificantly related to behavioralintention. Also, consumer innovativeness moderated the relationship betweenattitude and intention, while evidence for the interaction effect betweenconsumer innovativeness and social norm was not supported. The integration of diffusionof innovation theory and the theory of planned behavior in conceiving andinitiating appropriate marketing strategy for the new financial architecture areprovided and suggestions for future studies were discussed.