Effects of Mental Model and Intrinsic Motivation on Behavioral Intention of Smartphone Application Users

An application that has a simple user interface not only motivates a user to continue using the application, but also enables the user to develop their mental model for the application — the like of which is a product of their interaction with the application. In the information systems literature, little empirical research has been undertaken on the effects of the mental model and motivation on smartphone users’ behavioral beliefs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to suggest a research model that can examine the following: 1) the effects that the mental model has not only on smartphone users’ behavioral beliefs (that is, perceived usefulness and ease of use of an application) but also on their behavioral intention to use an application and 2) the effects that smartphone users’ intrinsic motivation has on their behavioral beliefs through an expansion of the mental model. A survey is conducted, and structural equation modeling is then used to analyze the survey data. The results, through consideration of variables such as intrinsic motivation, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user satisfaction, indicate that the mental model has an indirect effect on a user's intention to use an application.     

The paradox of technology innovativeness and risk perceptions – A profile of Asian smartphone users

Risk perceptions and technology innovativeness are the two primary factors related to the adoption of mobile technologies. The current study examines the role of technology innovativeness and risk perceptions on smartphone use and dependence in an Asian context. A total of 9086 participants were recruited through online surveys from ten Asian countries. Ordinary least squares regression analyses revealed the effects of technology innovativeness, information security, privacy concern, and their interactions on smartphone use and dependence. Moreover, based on users’ smartphone usage patterns and perceptions, this paper identified four homogeneous groups using cluster analysis. Results shows that Asian smartphone users can be segmented into four groups: innovators, conservatives, moderators, and laggards. The four clusters show significant differences in demographic features. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed based on these findings.     

Developing a platform to evaluate and assess the security of wearable devices

Operating in a body area network around a smartphone user, wearables serve a variety of commercial, medical and personal uses. Depending on a certain smartphone application, a wearable can capture sensitive data about the user and provide critical, possibly life-or-death, functionality. When using wearables, security problems might occur on hardware/software of wearables, connected phone apps or web services devices, or Bluetooth channels used for communication. This paper develops an open source platform called SecuWear for identifying vulnerabilities in these areas and facilitating wearable security research to mitigate them. SecuWear supports the creation, evaluation, and analysis of security vulnerability tests on actual hardwares. Extending earlier results, this paper includes an empirical evaluation that demonstrates proof of concept attacks on commercial wearable devices and shows how SecuWear captures the information necessary for identifying such attacks. Also included is a process for releasing attack and mitigation information to the security community.     

An Integrated Adoption Model of Mobile Cloud Services: Exploration of Key Determinants and Extension of Technology Acceptance Model

This study identifies and investigates a number of cognitive factors that contribute to shaping user perceptions of and attitude toward mobile cloud computing services by integrating these factors with the technology acceptance model. A structural equation modeling analysis is employed on data collected from 1099 survey samples, and results reveal that user acceptance of mobile cloud services is largely affected by perceived mobility, connectedness, security, quality of service and system, and satisfaction. Both theoretical and practical implications of the study’s findings are discussed.     

Modeling the user acceptance of long-term evolution (LTE) services

With an integrated framework, this paper aims to analyze user perception and acceptance toward long-term evolution (LTE) services, focusing on factors that may influence the intention to use. We conducted a web-based survey of 1,192 users to test our research model. We employed structural equation modeling (SEM) as the analysis method. The results of the integrated model analysis indicate that system satisfaction is a core determinant of intention to use LTE services. The model also found that other factors, including perceived usefulness and system and service quality, significantly affect intention to use these services. In addition, both perceived adaptivity and processing speed significantly influence perceived usefulness and service quality, respectively. These factors also play key roles in determining users’ attitudes. This paper is of value to researchers and engineers designing and improving LTE services for use via mobile phones.     

Evaluation of User Support: Factors That Affect User Satisfaction With Helpdesks and Helplines

In addition to technical documentation, face-to-face helpdesks and telephonic helplines are a powerful means for supporting users of technical products and services. This study investigates the factors that determine user satisfaction with helpdesks and helplines. A survey, based on the SERVQUAL framework and questionnaire, shows that the SERVQUAL dimensions of customer satisfaction are not applicable in these contexts. Three quality dimensions were found instead: solution quality, the experience of the consultation, and, in the case of a physical environment, the so-called tangibles. Helpdesk customers base their overall quality perceptions mainly on their experiences during a consultation, while helpline customers focus strongly on the quality of the solution offered. The study also found a connection between the perceived helpline quality and the appreciation of the primary service.     

Understanding user privacy expectations: A software developer’s perspective

Software developers are trained to develop and design software applications that provide services to users. However, software applications sometimes collect users’ data without their knowledge. When applications collect and use users’ data without transparency, this leads to user privacy invasions because users do not expect the application to collect and use these information. Therefore, it is important that software developers understand users’ privacy expectations when designing applications in order to handle user data transparently in software applications. However, due to the lack of systematic approaches to extract user privacy requirements, developers end up designing applications either based on their assumptions on user privacy expectations, or relating to their own expectations of privacy as a user. Nevertheless, how accurate these perceived privacy expectations are against actual user expectations is not currently known. This research focuses on investigating developers’ privacy expectations from a user point of view against users’ privacy expectations. We also investigate developers’ assumptions on user privacy expectations against actual user privacy expectations. Our findings revealed that developers’ assumptions on user privacy expectations are close to their own expectations of privacy from a user point of view and that developers’ privacy expectations from a user point of view are significantly different from actual user privacy expectations. With this understanding, we provide recommendations for software developers to understand and acknowledge user expectations on privacy when they design and develop applications.     

Conditional privacy-protection remote user authentication mechanism for WBAN

A conditional privacy-protection remote user authentication scheme based on a certificateless group signature was proposed,which can accomplish the anonymous mutual authentication between the user and the remote doctors.In addition,when the doctors perceived that users were in case of an emergency,the mechanism enabled the only group manager (GM) to expose the real identity information of users and given users timely assistance.The scheme can provide the anonymity,traceability,mutual authentication,non-reputation and some other security features.The performance analysis results show the scheme is more suitable for WBAN.     

An autonomous QoE-driven network management framework

Recently, network researchers have taken a great interest in quality of experience (QoE) and in the new aspects it brings in the study of the link between network conditions and user satisfaction. Also, the realization that the information of users’ satisfaction can be directly applied in the network management in a real-time manner has resulted in a fair amount of publications. Although the systems and frameworks presented in these publications tackle the subject of QoE-driven management quite successfully, they often concentrate on certain applications or technologies. We present a generic QoE management framework, which is applicable to a broad range of systems. We also demonstrate an instantiation of this framework as a network access point management system for RTP-based video. This system is not only able to positively affect the perceived quality of the multimedia application considered, but also to reduce over-prioritization and optimize resource usage.     

Effect of Culture, Age, and Language on Quality of Services and Adoption of IP Applications

Mobile phones with applications on Internet Protocol (IP) can be seen almost in anyplace and anytime at present. This enables development of new types of applications for various user segments, using smart phones as user devices. Different people around the world have different needs to suit their personal and cultural tastes. A better understanding of quality of service (QoS) will help enhance adoption and use of IP technology. Although there are many recent research related to adoption of new information technology application, there were only a few study related to user perception of QoS. This study proposed factors that can be used as dimensions for assessment of perception of QoS (QOS) of IP application by users with different human centric factors. The proposed perceived QOS includes 3 dimensions; culture, ageing, and language. Cultural dimensions in this research include Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity, and Uncertainty Avoidance. Ageing dimensions cover expectancy of knowledge, experience, and physical degradation. Two more dimensions related to ability to notice and coping with unexpected events are also used as assessment dimensions. Language dimensions are language visibility and speech intelligibility. With the proposed perceived QOS, application developers can identify features and quality required by users with different culture, ageing and language. Besides, the proposed dimensions can also be used for predicting user adoption of new IP application among different groups of users.     

Do website features matter in an online gamification context? Focusing on the mediating roles of user experience and attitude

The purposes of this study are mainly to investigate the relationships among website features (i.e. utilitarian and hedonic features), user experience, perceived value (i.e. information value, experiential value, social value, and transaction value), user attitude, and behavioral intentions (i.e. intention to use and word-of-mouth intention), and additionally the mediating effects of user experience and attitude are also explored in this study in an online gamification context. Specifically, this study applies a structural equation model to test the causal relationships among those website features, user experience, perceived value, user experience, and behavioral intentions in an online gamification context. Results show that both utilitarian features and hedonic features have significant impact on users’ experience, which in turn affects their perception of value and attitude. Users’ perceptions of information and transaction value also significantly affect their attitude, and in turn affect their behavioral intentions. Besides, the mediating effects of user experience and attitude are also confirmed in this study. To summarize, the findings of this study can help website managers improve their users’ perceptions of value and attitude more effectively and act as a guide for research and development (R&D) of gamification to acquire competitive advantage and further evoke desired behavioral intentions.     

What drives purchase intention on Airbnb? Perspectives of consumer reviews,information quality,and media richness

The owners of idle assets and their potential users create economic benefits through providing or sharing idle assets or skills, and this process has been formalized and monetized at large scales by companies such as Uber, Airbnb, USpace and others. This research seeks to understand the factors affecting the purchase intention on Airbnb users in terms of five key factors: rating, rating volume, review, information quality, and media richness. ANOVA and path analysis are used to test the relationships of these factors with perceived value, satisfaction and purchase intention. Results indicate that perceived value and satisfaction are key determinants of intention to buy, while rating volume, review, information quality, and media richness are important precursors. In addition, gender and usage experiences with Airbnb are also used to classify the sample to assess the difference between each classification. The results of this study can provide a useful reference to researchers and firms and individuals working in the sharing economy.     

Mobile customer segmentation based on smartphone measurement

While customer segmentation for mobile services is typically based on demographics and reported use, smartphone measurement software enables to add directly observed user behavior. This explorative paper develops customer segmentation on relevant metrics from the perspective of network operators, handset manufacturers, and application developers. We analyze the results of a smartphone measurement project among 129 users using latent class analysis. The data are subsequently related to demographics and psychographics, to enable lifestyles. We find that several service clusters can be defined from the perspectives of the usage of the network (i.e. voice, SMS and data) and the usage of content services (i.e. URLs and applications). We demonstrate that such clusters can be related to demographic as well as psychographic segments. The results provide fine grained insights in market segments as well as new hypotheses about mobile behavior that are open for further testing. While being exploratory in nature, the study demonstrates the relevance of customer segmentation on smartphone measurement data.     

Smartphone user segmentation based on app usage sequence with neural networks

The term user segmentation refers to classifying users into groups depending on their specific needs, characteristics, or behaviors. It is a key element of product development and marketing in many industries, such as the smartphone industry, which employs user segmentation to gather information about usage logs, to produce new products for such specific groups of users. However, previous studies on smartphone user segmentation have been primarily based on demographics and reported usage, which are inherently subjective and prone to skew by the observers and participants. Hamka et al. (2014) was the first to conduct a study, in which smartphone user segmentation was performed using log data collected through smartphone measurements. However, they focused only on network usage and the number of apps used, and not on characteristics or preferences. In this study, we proposed novel ways of segmenting smartphone users based on app usage sequences collected from smartphone logs. We proposed a variant of seq2seq architecture combining the advantages of previous deep neural networks: neural embedding architecture and seq2seq architecture. Furthermore, we compared the user segmentation results of the proposed method with an answer set of segmentation results conducted by domain experts. These experiments demonstrated that the proposed method effectively determines similarities between usage sequences and outperforms existing user segmentation methods.     

Communication skills of IS providers: an expectation gap analysis from three stakeholder perspectives

Communication skills are crucial to the successful completion of an information system (IS) project. The ability to interact with all potential stakeholders in an organization, to clearly document requirements, and to effectively express ideas has long been recognized by researchers and practitioners as critical success factors. This study examines how communication skills of IS professionals during a development project are viewed by three different stakeholders. Specifically, each of three stakeholder groups is examined to determine the extent to which a gap between expectations and perceived performance leads to lower satisfaction of the system of the users, lower perceived job performance by IS managers, or less career satisfaction for the IS professionals. A matched survey indicates that user satisfaction and job performance ratings by managers are related to a perceived failure to meet expectations, but that IS professionals do not relate career satisfaction directly to a lack in these skills. Organizations looking for success in the IS function must take steps to improve the communication skills of the IS professionals to the level expected by other stakeholders.     

Disentangling facial recognition payment service usage behavior: A trust perspective

Facial recognition payment (FRP) technology has been used as an innovative digital approach to payment services. This study develops a model to investigate how user trust—including trust in FRP service providers and FRP—affects users’ continuance intentions toward FRP services. We also propose that trust in FRP itself is affected by perceived vulnerability, perceived security, and perceived response efficacy from a privacy and security perspective. Our research model was empirically tested via a partial-least-squares analysis with survey data collected from 217 FRP users in China. The results show that trust in both FRP service providers and FRP itself positively affects users’ continuance intentions, and trust in service providers affects trust in FRP. Perceived security and response efficacy positively affect trust in FRP. This research contributes to the literature on FRP and trust, offering practical implications for FRP service providers on how to manage individual users’ FRP-related privacy concerns while enhancing user trust in FRP, which facilitates continuous FRP use.     

Crafting a smartphone repurchase decision making process: Do brand attachment and gender matter?

In this fast changing digital era, smartphones users tend to change their smartphones regularly. Therefore, retaining existing consumers has been a challenging task for smartphone manufacturer brands. Given the status quo in smartphone industry and deficiencies in smartphone research, this study proposes a model that integrates Expectation Confirmation Model and brand attachment to shed light on smartphone repurchase decision making process. Besides, gender differences are also accounted for in the model. This study employs a two-staged approach, namely PLS-ANN, in analysing the data collected from 510 existing smartphone owners. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was firstly engaged, and followed by artificial neural network analysis. Besides, a non-parametric partial least squares multi-group analysis has also been conducted to discover gender differences in such decision making process. The results suggest that brand attachment is the most influential and relevant driver of consumers’ intention to repurchase smartphones from current brand (measured by continuance intention). Moreover, male consumers are more sensitive to the influence of brand attachment in developing their satisfaction and continuance intention, while female consumers are relying more on perceived usefulness. Interestingly, perceived usefulness does not significantly influence male consumers in continuance intention development. Practical and theoretical implications are subsequently offered.     

Smartphones and psychological well-being in China: Examining direct and indirect relationships through social support and relationship satisfaction

Drawing insights from media richness theory and the Internet-enhanced self-disclosure hypothesis, this study examined the direct and indirect relationships between multiple uses of the smartphone and psychological well-being. A national online survey of smartphone users in China (N = 908) was conducted. Findings based on structural equation modelling showed that face-to-face and mobile voice communication directly predicted well-being whereas the relationship was indirect for mobile email, Weibo and WeChat through social support and relationship satisfaction. The results demonstrated the importance of examining smartphone use more holistically and using theory-based perspectives to explain the contingent mechanisms linking smartphone use and well-being.     

The Effect of Social Context on the Success of Knowledge Repository Systems

Knowledge repository systems (KRSs) have gained popularity for enabling knowledge codification and reuse. This paper develops and tests a model of KRS success, including perceived KRS searchability, perceived KRS output quality, perceived usefulness, and user satisfaction, and examines how three aspects of social context (extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards, and organizational trust) affect these dimensions of KRS success. Empirical results from a survey of 141 KRS users in China and Singapore indicate that perceived KRS output quality depends on KRS searchability and the social context, perceived usefulness depends on perceived KRS output quality, and user satisfaction depends on perceived KRS output quality and perceived KRS searchability. However, the study provides some surprises: perceived KRS searchability only indirectly (through perceived KRS output quality) affects perceived usefulness, and the social context directly affects only perceived KRS output quality and not perceived usefulness. Our results suggest a four-pronged approach toward enhancing knowledge contribution and reuse in organizations: 1) developing organizational trust; 2) facilitating intrinsic rewards for knowledge contribution, partly through organizational trust; 3) the exercise of caution in the use of extrinsic rewards; and 4) the design of a KRS with a high level of searchability.      

A Study on the Use Intention of Long Term Evolution Mobile Service

The rapid development of ICT is bringing about a digital transformation. The digital transformation affects all areas, and ICT is at the center of many technologies. In particular, the importance of technical services for wireless communications is being increasingly emphasized. Thus, the qualities of technical services for wireless communications have effects not only on the companies who provide services but also on the consumers who receive them. As technologies develop, consumers want to receive more stable and higher quality services. In this regard, this study classified the qualities of LTE service into call quality, speed quality, and user support quality, investigated their influential factors on perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and playfulness, and analyzed their causal relationship with satisfaction and continuous use intention. As a result of analysis, all the hypotheses were accepted; except for the one that call quality will have effects on perceived usefulness (H1-1), except for the one that social influence will have effects on user satisfaction (H7-2), except for the one that customer membership will have effects on perceived usefulness (H8-1), except for the one that social influence will have effects on perceived usefulness (H8-2). The results of this study provided practical guidelines to service providers through the causal relationship analysis of various variables affecting LTE services satisfaction and constant services.