The effects of usability and web design attributes on user preference for e-commerce web sites

This study examines the relationships among perceived usability before actual use, task completion time, and preference, and the effects of design attributes on user preference for e-commerce web sites. Nine online bookstore web sites were used by ten participants. Results indicate: (1) pre-use usability and task completion time were correlated; (2) the relationship between pre-use usability and preference was greater than that of task completion time and preference; (3) design attribute assessments after actual use were highly intercorrelated; and (4) organizational structure and layout had a greater effect on user preference than aesthetic aspects, such as color and typography. These findings can be used to construct a conceptual framework for understanding user preferences and to develop design guidelines to yield more highly preferred e-commerce web sites. Also, the methodology in this study can be applied to other computerized-applications.     

An empirical study examining the perceptions and behaviours of security-conscious users of mobile authentication

The purpose of this study is to better understand, from an explorative qualitative perspective, the motivations and practices of highly security-conscious users of mobile authentication, and their underlying mental models of those behaviours. Mobile authentication studies have largely overlooked the mindset of these users in the upper bound of security experience, who have considered their behaviour in terms of detailed knowledge of mobile authentication risk. Twenty IT professionals who self-identified as security-conscious mobile device users, many with decades of intensive security-specific experience, were interviewed for this study regarding their opinions and experiences with mobile device authentication and security. These users described usability and situational impairment issues, as well as a deep concern for their identity and data security arising from highly contextual combinations of distrust towards underlying technologies and situational risk. Derived implications for development of security methods adapted to these informed perspectives are discussed and will be the basis for follow-on research comparing these findings with everyday users.     

Perceived usefulness,user involvement and behavioral intention: an empirical study of ERP implementation

Many firms have implemented enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in the past few years. The expensive nature of these systems requires that effective usage of these systems be attained in order for an organization to derive the expected benefits from the technology. This study looks at the influence that perceived usefulness, user involvement, argument for change, prior usage and ease of use have on the behavioral intention to use an ERP system. A mail survey was used to collect data in an organization that was implementing an ERP system. A total of 571 responses were obtained. The results indicate that users perception of the perceived usefulness, ease of use of the technology, and the users’ level of intrinsic involvement all affect their intention to use the technology. The results seem to suggest that managerial efforts aimed at increasing the users’ perceptions of the usefulness and personal relevance of the technology will contribute to implementation success, where success is defined as effectual usage of the technology. The paper ends with possible extensions to this study.     

Sophistication of Internet usage (SIU) and its attitudinal antecedents: An empirical study in Hong Kong

The measurement of Internet use in empirical studies has undergone a progression from uni-item measurement to multi-item measurement. Based on several operationalizations of Internet use in existing studies, the paper proposes a reflective measurement model, called ‘sophistication of Internet usage’ (SIU), with five indicators (online time, online activities, online skills, diversity of online method, and diversity of online places). With data from a longitudinal random survey conducted in Hong Kong from 2003 to 2005, a uni-dimension measurement model is established based on confirmatory factor analysis. Convergent and discriminant validity of the uni-dimension model is also established within multi-trait-multi-method (MTMM) paradigm by confirmatory factor analysis. The model shows that individuals’ positive life outcome expectation, expected ease of use, and perceived popularity of the Internet are significant antecedents of SIU with demographic characteristics controlled.     

An empirical study of the factors affecting social network service use

Social network services are emerging as a promising IT-based business, with some services already being provided commercially such as Facebook, Cyworld and Xiaonei. However, it is not yet clear which potential audience groups will be key social network service participants. Moreover, the process showing how an individual actually decides to start using a social network service may be somewhat different from current web-based community services. Hence, the aims of this paper are twofold. First, we empirically examine how individual characteristics affect actual user acceptance of social network services. To examine these individual characteristics, we apply a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to construct an amended model that focuses on three individual differences: social identity, altruism and telepresence, and one perceived construct: the perceived encouragement, imported from psychology-based research. Next, we examine if the users’ perception to see a target social network service as human relationship-oriented service or as a task-oriented service could be a moderator between perceived constructs and actual use. As a result, we discover that the perceived encouragement and perceived orientation are significant constructs that affect actual use of social network services.     

Behavioral aspects of enterprise systems adoption: An empirical study on cultural factors

Recently, behavioral aspects of enterprise systems have been called to investigate further in the information systems (IS) community. The purpose of this paper is to apply individual-level measurement of cultural orientation, such as power distance and uncertainty avoidance, to the recent findings of computer self-efficacy and ERP adoption belief, such as perceived ease of use, based on the survey of 101 ERP system experts. An online survey methodology is used to gather data from the various industrial fields. The research model is constructed based on the findings of the previous studies in IS, management, and cultural psychology. The results indicate that low power distance and high uncertainty avoidance cultural orientation influence general CSE. In addition, uncertainty avoidance positively influences ease of use of ERP systems. As expected, general CSE positively influences ease of use of ERP systems. Training and managerial interventions through communication to improve these cultural orientations would be effective for the successful ERP systems project. The findings of this research would be helpful to the project managers, IS researchers, and ERP practitioners who want to understand the behavioral aspects of ERP systems adoption in the organization.     

Internet anxiety: An empirical study of the effects of personality,beliefs, and social support

We examined sources of Internet anxiety; specifically modeling the ties from broad dispositional traits (computer anxiety, computer self-efficacy, and personal innovativeness with IT), beliefs about the work environment (about the adequacy of resources and trust in technology), and two forms of social support for IT (leader and peer support) to individuals’ anxiety about using Internet applications. We tested our model using respondents who participated in virtual teams during a 16-week period. Our findings suggested that Internet anxiety was affected both by the users’ personality and by beliefs that can be influenced by providing adequate resources to support the technology, encourage trust in technology, and working to assure users that leaders and peers are supportive of their using the technology. Our findings suggest that by providing appropriate resources and fostering a supportive environment, leaders could reduce Internet anxiety and thus influence the use of technology in the workplace in ways that benefit organizations.     

Perceived risks, counter-beliefs, and intentions to use anti-/counter-terrorism websites: An exploratory study of government–citizens online interactions in a turbulent environment

This study examines the relationships between various risks, beliefs, and behavioral intentions that are related to citizens' use of anti-/counter-terrorism e-Government websites. The data was collected through two surveys within a one-year interval — before and after the Iraqi regime was expelled by the US coalition army. The results suggest that perceived privacy risk from an anti/counter-terrorism authority is the major obstacle in citizen-to-government anti/counter-terrorism information flow, while citizens' belief in the authority's domain competence greatly influences citizens' dependence on anti/counter-terrorism website information. Other findings and implications are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.     

An empirical study of a reverse engineering method for the aggregation relationship based on operation propagation

One of the major obstacles in reverse engineering legacy object-oriented systems is the identification of aggregation relationships. An aggregation relationship, also called whole–part relationship, is a form of association relationship where an object is considered as a part of another object. This characteristic is mostly of semantic nature; therefore, it is difficult to distinguish aggregation from association relationships by implementation mechanism. Most reverse engineering methods for aggregation relationships are based on the lifetime dependence of an object on another object since many implementations of aggregation relationships result in such dependence. However, research literature shows that lifetime dependence is not really a primary property of the aggregation relationships. A reverse engineering approach is proposed on the basis of a primary characteristic for aggregation relationship—propagation of operations. To compare the propagation-based method with the lifetime-based method, we apply both methods to ten class libraries, collect their output, and perform statistical analysis to determine the effectiveness of the two methods. The analysis results show that the propagation-based method performs significantly better than the lifetime-based method and by combining both methods simultaneously the complete aggregation relationships can be uncovered for the class libraries in our experiment.

An instrument for the measurement of customer perceptions of quality management in the software industry: An empirical study in India

Most of the available literature on quality management is based on management’s perception; few studies examine critical issues of quality management from the customer’s perspective, especially in the software industry. In order to gain an insight into what customers expect from a product/service, an analysis of quality management from customer’s point of view is essential. Such an understanding would help the managers to adopt strategies that can enhance the satisfaction level of their customers. The present study highlights the critical factors of quality management in the software industry from the customer’s perspective. Six critical factors are identified: and an instrument, comprising these factors, is developed and validated so as to measure the customer’s perception of quality management in the software industry. George Issac is an Assistant Professor in Mar Athanasius College of Engineering, Kothamangalam, India. He holds a B.Sc (Engg.) degree in Mechanical Engineering from Kerala University, and M.Tech and Ph.D degrees in Management from IIT Madras. His research areas are TQM and Organizational Behavior. He has published articles in the area of quality management in journals such as Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, and Quality Management Journal of American Society for Quality. Chandrasekharan Rajendran is a Professor of Operations Management in the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. His research interests are in TQM, Scheduling and Simulation. He has published several articles in international journals. He has publications in the area of TQM in journals such as Total Quality Management, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Service Industry Management, International Journal of Bank Marketing, and Journal of Services Marketing. He serves as referee for many journals. He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship of Germany. R.N. Anantharaman is a Professor of Management in the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. His research interests are in TQM, Organizational Behavior and Industrial Psychology. He has published several articles in international journals. He has published research articles in the area of TQM, HRM Practices, Change Management, etc., in Journals such as Total Quality Management, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Bank Marketing, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Journal of Services Marketing, International Journal of Human Resource Management, and Journal of Transnational Management Development.     

An empirical analysis of the computerization of interactive software evaluation systems

This research studies factor analysis of traditional survey- questionnaires for interactive software evaluation in order to construct a Principal Factor Conversion Function (PFCF). Such a PFCF may be used in several ways: first, for exploratory purposes, to discover the principal factors of the traditional questionnaire; second to test the potential of data reduction within significant loss of information; and third to compare the traditional manual evaluation to a condensed computerized interactive software evaluation. A CAI system was used as the software to be evaluated in this research.