New accepted IJSNM paper
Do Peer Networks Really Drive FinTech Adoption? Evidence from a Semantic Similarity Analysis of Digital Finance Literature
Authors
1.Ms. Putri Sarah Olivia Email: psaraholivia@gmail.com Institution: UNIJI
2.Ms. Tesalonika Putri Christvia Email: tesalonikaputri21@gmail.com Institution: UNIJI
3.Mr. Richard Kristanto Email: albertrichardkristanto@gmail.com Institution: UNIJI
4.Mr. Vincent Henderson Chang Email: vincenthendersonchang@gmail.com Institution: UNIJI
5.Dr. Didi Sundiman Email: sundimand@gmail.com Institution: Universitas Universal, Indonesia
This study investigates the conceptual drivers of FinTech adoption in low-institutional-trust environments, focusing on marginalized and Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) communities. Utilizing a mixed-methods computational document analysis design, we evaluate a corpus of 177 text samples, using Sentence-BERT vector embeddings and cosine similarity. Two competing theoretical anchor propositions are evaluated across the corpus: the primacy of informal peer networks as trust surrogates versus individual technology readiness and perceived functional utility. Empirical results show that published literature exhibits statistically higher semantic alignment with the individual technology readiness anchor than with the peer network anchor. A paired-sample t-test verified this difference (t(176)=-10.1241, p<0.001, d=-0.761), statistically rejecting the baseline proposition of peer network primacy at the discourse level. These findings demonstrate that contemporary scholarly and professional literature prioritizes individual cognitive capabilities, digital financial literacy, and user-centric platform usability over informal social proof when conceptualizing FinTech adoption.
#ijsnm#socialnetwork#peernetwork#fintech#semintic
