A New Adoption Intention Model of Drone Application in Food Delivery Services in Malaysia: A Conceptual Paper

The current Industrial Revolution era seems to enforce new ways of implementing online food delivery services, one of which is the use of drone delivery. One of the problems is that the existing food delivery services use human riders which are prone to accidents, for example about 1600 death cases were reported in 2020 involving p-hailing (food and parcel) riders. Also, the use of drones is needed to help victims of natural disasters such as floods, typhoons, and landslides. Malaysia has commenced the trial use of drone food delivery to tackle these problems. Particularly, consumers’ behavioral intentions to use drone food delivery services have been laid low with complex aviation rules and regulations. Hence, the main objective of this study is to examine the predictors of adoption intention in drone food delivery among food delivery providers and consumers in Malaysia. The research methods used are qualitative and quantitative research designs. The quantitative data will be collected using an online survey and will be analyzed using structural equation modeling (SMART PLS). For qualitative technique, the telephone interviews with 15 food delivery service providers and drone collaborators will be conducted and analyzed using verbatim analysis. The expected output is a new adoption intention model of drone food delivery services, one Master student (by research), two publications, and one IP. The result will be significant to the nation in terms of increasing the adoption of delivery drones hence increasing automation in line with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0). This research also improves the economy and societal benefit through efficient supply chain and transportation of services in urban and affected areas such as the spread of diseases or natural disasters, i.e., floods and landslides.