An empirical analysis of the determinants of 3G adoption in China

The main aim of this study is to examine the factors that affect Chinese consumers’ intention to adopt 3G. This study has extended the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by incorporating the determinants of perceived usefulness, cost, trust, and demographic profiles of Chinese consumers. Data is collected from Chinese consumers via self-administered questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was applied to examine the research model proposed. Our result showed that social influence, service quality and perceived ease of use have a direct and significant relationship with perceived usefulness of 3G, and this in turn affects the consumers’ decision to adopt 3G. Contrary to existing TAM research, perceived ease of use was not found to have a direct and significant influence with Chinese consumers’ intention to adopt 3G. Our study also revealed that those with higher educational level are more likely to adopt 3G. Based on the findings, this research is able to propose several practical recommendations to 3G providers in China, such as enhancing the variety of services provided through collaborations with mobile software and content developers. Furthermore, 3G providers can focus on promoting 3G through services such as “Friends and Family” packages as Chinese consumers’ 3G adoption decisions is influenced by their social network. In terms of theoretical contributions, this study has answered many calls from past researchers to investigate the determinants of perceived usefulness. This research was also conducted in China, which is one of the largest telecommunication markets in the world.     

Towards an understanding of the behavioral intention to use 3G mobile value-added services

As profit margins gradually decline, and market competition becomes increasingly intensive, 3G telecom operators must provide various mobile value-added services, as well as traditional voice services, to attract new subscribers and retain old ones. However, for many 3G mobile value-added services, whether ARPU (average revenue per user) can be effectively enhanced depends on the consumer behavioral intentions. Therefore, this study uses the Technology Acceptance Model as the foundation and incorporate personal innovativeness and perceived cost to further understand consumer’s behavioral intention to use 3G mobile value-added services. The following conclusions can be reached from the research findings: (1) consumer usage rate of current 3G value-added services remains low; (2) increased personal innovativeness will directly enhance the perceived ease of use of 3G mobile value-added services; (3) the perceived usefulness is enhanced when consumers perceive higher ease of use of value-added services; (4) perceived usefulness has the strongest effect on consumer attitude, followed by perceived ease of use and perceived cost, and (5) the most important factor in increasing consumer’s behavioral intention to use 3G mobile value-added services is attitude, followed by perceived ease of use, perceived cost and perceived usefulness. Results of this study provide a valuable reference for service providers to develop mobile value-added services.     

Exploring factors influencing consumers’ behavioral intention to adopt broadband in Malaysia

The purpose of this paper is to examine various normative, attitudinal and control factors influencing consumers’ intention to adopt broadband internet in a developing country such as Malaysia. This study is based on empirical data collected using a self-administered questionnaire relating to the normative, attitudinal and control variables. Structural equation modeling analysis is conducted to test the role of numerous variables on consumers’ behavioral intentions to adopt broadband internet in Malaysia. Results revealed that Primary Influences (PI), Relative Advantage (RA), Hedonic Outcomes (HO), Facilitating Conditions Resources (FCR), and Self-Efficacy (SE) are positively associated with consumers’ Behavioral Intention (BI) to adopt broadband in Malaysia. The significance of this research study is twofold. Practically, this research study provide some useful guidelines to industry players, be it the internet service providers (ISPs) or the policy makers, to understand which are the factors (primary influences, self-efficacy, relative advantage, hedonic outcomes and facilitating conditions resources) that can have an influence on consumers’ intention to adopt broadband technology. It was found that primary influences, self-efficacy and relative advantage are the key determinants that influences consumers’ broadband adoption. From here, practitioners could take into consideration our findings when revising and restructuring their marketing strategy. Theoretically, the research framework used in this study is an extension from the past research models used (i.e. TPB, DOI and MATH). With the newly integrated framework, a greater level of comprehension can be attained with regards to the broadband acceptance among the Malaysian consumers.     

Understanding the behavior of mobile data services consumers

Due to rapid advances in the Internet and wireless technologies, a ubiquitous computing world is becoming a reality in the form of mobile computing. At the center of this phenomenon is mobile data services which arise from the convergence of advanced mobile communication technologies with data services. Despite the rapid growth in mobile data services, research into consumers’ usage behavior is scarce. This study attempts to identify and empirically assess the factors that drive consumers’ acceptance of mobile data services. A research model based on the decomposed theory of planned behavior and incorporating factors that represent personal needs and motivations in using mobile data services is presented. The model is tested via an online survey of 811 consumers of four categories of mobile data services (i.e., communications, information content, entertainment, and commercial transactions) associated with different usage contexts. We found that attitude, social influence, media influence, perceived mobility, and perceived monetary value influence consumers’ intention to continue usage of mobile data services. In addition, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived enjoyment influence attitude toward continued usage of mobile data services. Finally, separate analysis of the different categories of mobile data services highlights the influence of individual usage context on consumers’ behavior.

Consumer adoption of mobile TV: Examining psychological flow and media content

Mobile TV service, which provides television-like content through a mobile device, holds a limelight as the next killer application of wireless technologies and also as a prospective hedonic information technology. However, in a world where other potential wireless technologies and services speedily emerge, vendors and service providers interested in mobile TV hope that it will be diffused over the gulf between early users to general ones prior to competing sprouts. At this point, an investigation of early consumers’ adoption of mobile TV may offer precious information for its survival. Based on the theoretical assumptions of the technology acceptance model (TAM), this study examines influences of cognitive concentration (or flow experience) and media content on consumers’ acceptance of mobile TV. The results are threefold. First, results suggest that cognitive concentration (or flow experience) and content have a significant role in consumers’ intention to use hedonic information technology. Second, results show that content has a critical impact on cognitive concentration. Finally, results support the use of the extended TAM as an explainer in the context of hedonic information technology.     

Determinants of accepting wireless mobile data services in China

Data services via wireless networks and mobile devices have experienced rapid growth worldwide. We investigated the factors influencing adoption of wireless mobile data services (WMDS) in China and tested our model for explaining adoption intentions there. We argued that individuals form their intention to adopt WMDS under the influence of wireless mobile technology, the social environment, personal innovativeness of IT, trust awareness, and the facilitating conditions. We examined the simultaneous effects of these five influences on beliefs in the context of wireless Internet data services via mobile phones. Survey data were collected from 1432 participants in several metro cities across China. The findings suggest that WMDS adoption intention in China is determined by consumers’ perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of WMDS. Theoretical and practical implications are included in our paper.     

An empirical investigation of electronic word-of-mouth: Informational motive and corporate response strategy

The proliferation of the Internet has given birth to a number of complaint web sites where dissatisfied and frustrated consumers can easily articulate their opinions and comments on products, services, or companies. Little attention, however, has been paid to the influence of online complaints on potential consumers’ behaviors. This study attempts to provide the understanding of causal attribution process in the online complaining behaviors. The results showed that informational factors, such as vividness and consensus, facilitated consumers’ attribution to companies’ responsibility for the negative events, and subsequently led to changing their evaluation of the companies. In addition, we found that corporate response strategies to online complaints should be different from the conventional response strategies.     

Product type and consumers’ perception of online consumer reviews

Consumers hesitate to buy experience products online because it is hard to get enough information about experience products via the Internet. Online consumer reviews may change that, as they offer consumers indirect experiences about dominant attributes of experience products, transforming them into search products. When consumers are exposed to an online consumer review, it should be noted that there are different kinds of review sources. This study investigates the effects of review source and product type on consumers’ perception of a review. The result of the online experiment suggests that product type can moderate consumers’ perceived credibility of a review from different review sources, and the major findings are: (1) consumers are more influenced by a review for an experience product than for a search product when the review comes from consumer-developed review sites, and (2) a review from an online community is perceived to be the most credible for consumers seeking information about an experience product. The findings provide managerial implications for marketers as to how they can better manage online consumer reviews.     

The effect of behavioral tracking practices on consumers’ shopping evaluations and repurchase intention toward trusted online retailers

The study applies the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) model and Social Contract Theory to investigate the effect of behavioral practices scenarios (stimulus) on consumers’ evaluations of their online shopping experiences (internal organism) and repurchase intention toward online retailers (external response). The findings suggest there is a disconnect between online shoppers and their trusted online retailers regarding the information collected from online shoppers since, currently, sharing of information collected from customers within affiliates or even with third-party companies such as networking advertising associations for secondary uses (e.g. targeted advertising) is a fairly common practice in the marketing field. Left unresolved, this disconnect may undermine consumers’ repurchase intention toward the retailers and potentially injure the social contract between retailers and their customers. These findings are significant for the online retailing industry, consumers and public policy makers.     

Adding clicks to bricks: A study of the consequences on customer loyalty in a service context

With the explosion of the Internet many firms are incorporating technology into their marketing and operations and are adopting a multichannel strategy. The impact of this strategy has been especially high in the services area, which has traditionally relied on close, personal contact between customers and employees. This study explores how overall customer loyalty is built as a consequence of the value provided by each channel (offline and online). It also analyzes the moderating role of complexity of services used and customers’ Internet access in the service value–loyalty link. The model is tested with a sample of 302 multichannel financial services customers who use both the offline (traditional) and the online channel. Results show that offline perceived service value increases online perceived value; offline value has a stronger effect on overall loyalty than online value; and online service complexity and Internet adoption moderate the influence of service value on overall loyalty. Implications for management and theory are discussed.     

To buy or not to buy experience goods online: Perspective of innovation adoption barriers

The purpose of this study attempts to understand why consumers rarely shop online. Innovation resistance theory is employed in this study. Results of the survey utilizing a questionnaire among the members of study case indicated that value and tradition are major barriers toward use intention. Significant differences in usage barrier and image barrier exist between different non-adopted groups. On average, rejecters group have the highest barriers, followed by opponents, and postponers. Finally, there exist significant differences in usage, value, tradition, and image barriers between adopters and non-adopters toward buying experience goods online. These findings provide a better understanding of consumer’s attitude toward buying experience goods online.     

Whether a retailer should enter an e‐commerce platform taking into account consumer returns

Considering consumers are increasingly shopping online nowadays and the online sales market is dominated by e‐commerce giants, traditional retailers need to choose whether to enter e‐commerce platforms. Moreover, traditional retailers need to determine whether to offer offline return services considering online return services are very popular. To address these challenges, we explore a retailer's optimal offline return strategy and channel choice of whether or not to enter a platform in the contexts of symmetric information and asymmetric information, respectively. We present conditions for the retailer to share information. Interestingly, we find that the retailer in some conditions has no motivation to improve customer satisfaction rate of offline store. Most important, we find that the retailer's channel choice depends on the magnitude of the annual service fee that is affected by offline return strategy and asymmetric information, and the offline return strategy depends on the magnitude of the average residual value of returned products.     

Categorizing commercial products for customer oriented online retailing

Online retailing can offer several benefits. In order to realize these benefits, a commercial web site needs to ameliorate its deficiencies due to the absence of actual physical products. Although the use and popularity of the Internet continues to increase, it is still unclear how online retailers can establish effective online retailing strategies to capitalize on their benefits. For this clarification, this paper proposes a framework to categorize products according to consumers’ involvement and information quality fitness. Involvement refers to the degree of psychological identification or emotional ties consumers have with a particular product. Information quality fitness refers to the extent to which a product can fit with shopper’s requirements for online information. Thirty-six commercial products are empirically tested. It is found that products can be grouped into four categories such as ‘complex,’ ‘intelligent,’ ‘light,’ and ‘simple.’ This categorization can help understand product characteristics when they are sold via the Internet. Our finding implies that online retailers need to formulate their retailing strategies in view of these product categories.     

Consumer's decision to shop online: The moderating role of positive informational social influence

While much of the current literature tends to focus on the direct effect of social influence on consumer online shopping behavior, our study drew heavily on social influence theory and argued for an alternative theory focusing on the moderating role of social influence. In particular, we explored how positive messages in online discussion forums may affect consumers’ decisions to shop online. We used a laboratory experiment in which the treatment group was required to read positive messages about online shopping experience in an online discussion forum. Positive social influence was found to reinforce the relationship between beliefs about and attitude toward online shopping, as well as the relationship between attitude and intention to shop. We believe our alternative theory provides new insight into the complex processes through which social influence is brought to bear on consumers’ online shopping decisions. Implications of our work are discussed.     

The impact of distractions on the usability and intention to use mobile devices for wireless data services

Mobile technology has quickly become ingrained in society due to the flexibility of anywhere/anytime usage. However, factors associated with and that impact mobility, mobile users, and mobile use of products and services are still poorly understood. For example, even though distractions are ever present during everyday use of mobile devices, the nature and extent to which user perceptions and performance are affected by their presence is unknown. An empirical study was undertaken to investigate the impact of distractions and confirmation of pre-trial expectations on usability and its subsequent effect on consumers’ behavioral intention toward using a mobile device for wireless data services. Distractions were simulated in this study in the form of either user motion or environmental noise (i.e. background auditory and visual stimuli). A Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis confirmed the impacts of distractions on efficiency and effectiveness, and in turn the users’ satisfaction and behavioral intention to use a mobile device for wireless data services. Support was also obtained for a mediating effect of post-trial confirmation of expectations between perceived performance and satisfaction. Implications of these findings for theory, practice, and future research are outlined.     

Personalization versus Privacy: An Empirical Examination of the Online Consumer’s Dilemma

Personalization refers to the tailoring of products and purchase experience to the tastes of individual consumers based upon their personal and preference information. Recent advances in information acquisition and processing technologies have allowed online vendors to offer varieties of web-based personalization that not only increases switching costs, but also serves as important means of acquiring valuable customer information. However, investments in online personalization may be severely undermined if consumers do not use these services due to privacy concerns. In the absence of any empirical evidence that seeks to understand this consumer dilemma, our research develops a parsimonious model to predict consumers usage of online personalization as a result of the tradeoff between their value for personalization and concern for privacy. In addition to this tradeoff, we find that a consumers intent to use personalization services is positively influenced by her trust in the vendor. Our findings suggest that: 1. online vendors can improve their abilities to acquire and use customer information through trust building activities; 2. it is of critical importance that vendors understand and evaluate the different values consumers may place in enjoying various types of personalization.     

Is that deal worth my money? The effect of relative and referent thinking on starting price under different promotion programs using hotel coupons in online auctions

Developments in information technology have made shopping at home much easier and have created a so-called “Otaku economy” that is an increasing focus for tourism and hotel business managers. A related development is the increase in the popularity and value of online auction channels. Scholars thus argue that it is important to examine what factors influence consumers’ bidding behavior in this new context. One issue is what initial bidding price and a promotion program must offer to attract customers to join an auction when they will be using a complex online auction mechanism. This study used a 2 × 2 between-subjects design and the principles of relative and referent thinking to examine the influence of the starting price (whether the starting price deviates from the reference price) and the promotion program (price vs. non-price) on consumers’ online bidding for hotel coupons. The results of the analysis indicate the following. First, starting price is positively related to end price. Second, the relative thinking effect holds when the actual price is the same as the sellers’ reference price (i.e., when the starting price is higher). In this context, consumers prefer price promotion programs, and hence, their willingness to pay through bidding will increase. Finally, the referent thinking effect holds when the actual price deviates from the seller’s reference price (i.e., when the starting price is low). In this context, consumers prefer non-price promotion programs, and their willingness to pay through bidding will increase. The academic and managerial implications of this research are discussed in the conclusion.     

Modeling users’ acceptance of mobile services

The success of mobile services adoption hinges on their ability to cover user needs and attract consumer interest. The extant literature focuses on understanding the factors that might affect consumers’ actual adoption of such services through their effect on behavioral intention; these studies are mostly based on behavioral intention theories, such as Technology Acceptance Model, Diffusion of Innovation and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology. In this work, new theoretical constructs are combined with existing evidence in order to extend the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as it was initially established by Davis and later further enriched by other researchers. The proposed model includes behavioral intention, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, trust, innovativeness, relationship drivers, and functionality. Within this approach, relationship drivers introduce a marketing perspective to the original models of technology adoption by building emotional connections between the users and the mobile services. The hypothesized model is empirically tested using data collected from a survey on m-commerce consumers. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to evaluate the causal model and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model. It is briefly concluded that behavioral intention is directly affected by perceived usefulness, innovativeness and relationship drivers; the findings provide interesting insights and useful hints to practitioners and researchers.     

Stumbling upon news on the Internet: Effects of incidental news exposure and relative entertainment use on political engagement

Contemporary concerns that the Internet might lead to political apathy are based on suggestions that people would use the Internet for entertainment purposes rather than news consumption. However, what if someone stumbles upon news when surfing the Internet? Would this incidental news exposure online be helpful in promoting citizens’ political engagement? This study tests whether and how incidental news exposure (INE) and relative entertainment use (REU) on the Internet are associated with political participation. Drawing from US national data, results revealed a significant and positive relationship between INE and offline and online political participation while REU was negatively associated with offline and online political participation. More importantly, the role of INE in facilitating citizens’ online political participation was stronger for those who consume less entertainment online, indicating that incidental news exposure may increase existing gaps in political participation between people who prefer news and people who prefer entertainment online.     

Empirical investigation of customers’ channel extension behavior: Perceptions shift toward the online channel

An increasing number of traditional (offline) firms are opening up their online sales channels. However, a number of them are finding it difficult to increase the utilization of their online channels from their existing customers. The purpose of the current study is to identify factors that influence customers channel extension from the offline to online channel and to understand how these factors influence customers’ behavior towards online channel extension. Drawing on the theory of entitativity formulated by Campbell, we propose a research model of customers channel extension by focusing on the shift of perception from offline to the online channel. The data for the study is collected from a large bank in China. The structural equation modeling analysis results indicate that perceived offline service quality influences perceived online service quality both directly as well as indirectly through perceived entitativity. Perceived online service quality, in turn influences customers’ behavior towards the online channel extension. The results also demonstrate that self-efficacy for change directly influences behavior towards the online channel extension, and it also has an important moderating influence on relationship between perceived offline service quality and perceived online service quality. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.