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1 – 10 of 297Irfan Ali and Nosheen Fatima Warraich
Although, smartphones have facilitated users to keep their personal information, nonetheless, less has been investigated about factors affecting personal information management…
Abstract
Purpose
Although, smartphones have facilitated users to keep their personal information, nonetheless, less has been investigated about factors affecting personal information management (PIM) practices. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how personal innovativeness, perceived ease of use (PEOU) and mobile self-efficacy affect PIM (e.g. finding/re-finding, keeping, organizing and maintaining) practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative research design was used in this study. The authors collected data from 222 students of information management from public sector universities using a questionnaire. PLS modeling technique was used to analyze data.
Findings
The authors noted that personal innovativeness significantly impacts finding/refinding information, whereas it insignificantly affects keeping, organizing and maintaining information practices. In addition, smartphone PEOU significantly influences information finding and refinding, information keeping and organizing information, whereas insignificantly influences information maintaining. Moreover, mobile self-efficacy was noted to be significantly associated with finding and refinding information, information keeping, information organizing and information maintaining.
Originality/value
This research is an important contribution to the body of existing literature, as it proposed an integrated model based on constructs extracted from Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Social Cognitive Theory, personal innovativeness and PIM. This study also has practical significance because the findings of this study would be helpful for smartphone application developers and LIS school directors to design programs for information literacy.
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Given that smartphones are widely used as a key means for mobile commerce, the purpose of this paper is to provide in-depth understanding of determinants of the utilitarian value…
Abstract
Purpose
Given that smartphones are widely used as a key means for mobile commerce, the purpose of this paper is to provide in-depth understanding of determinants of the utilitarian value that customers seek to obtain from using smartphone-based mobile commerce. Drawing on the technology acceptance model (TAM), the study proposes that usefulness and ease of use are two typical factors representing utilitarian value and verifies their impacts on smartphone-based m-commerce use. Moreover, the paper expands the TAM by considering mobile-specific characteristics (i.e. service ubiquity and location-based service (LBS)) and a self-service technology (SST) characteristic (i.e. user control) as determinants of utilitarian value.
Design/methodology/approach
The study entailed conducting a survey, and analyses were conducted based on a total of 379 responses from undergraduate and graduate students who had experience using smartphones for mobile commerce. The analyses used structural equation modeling to test the research model and hypotheses.
Findings
First, in the context of the various technologies-involved m-commerce, TAM serves as a theoretical lens to predict user behavior. Second, usefulness is greatly increased by service ubiquity, LBS, and user control. Third, ease of use is enhanced by service ubiquity and user control. Finally, ease of use is a determinant of usefulness.
Originality/value
The findings imply that mobile-specific and SST characteristics are the key determinants of utilitarian value in performance-oriented mobile commerce, and utilitarian value is a key determinant of smartphone-based mobile commerce use.
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Sue Yeon Syn, Donghee Sinn and Sujin Kim
This study aims to investigate how college students' personal information behaviors were impacted by contexts, resource types and perceptions of personal information management.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how college students' personal information behaviors were impacted by contexts, resource types and perceptions of personal information management.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an online survey, a total of 1,194 valid responses were collected from college students. The three contexts used for this study include academic, health and personal digital history. Specific scenarios, along with sets of resource types, were provided for each context.
Findings
The findings show that college students' perceptions and contexts strongly influence their activities related to personal information, and that resource types impact their activities depending on the context in which the resource types are situated. The findings of this study provide evidence of how varying factors influence personal information behaviors at different levels. Information professionals need to design their services and programs in a way that is cognizant of the factors that influence users and the challenges that users meet with in different contexts and resource types.
Originality/value
The findings of this study contribute to personal information research by providing an understanding of how context, perceptions and resource types intertwiningly influence personal information behaviors. This study provides an insight into widely accepted patterns and perceptions of personal information behavior with particular information resource types and within specific contexts.
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Teresa Fernandes and Marta Costa
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a unique challenge for public health worldwide. In this context, smartphone-based tracking apps play an important role in controlling…
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic represents a unique challenge for public health worldwide. In this context, smartphone-based tracking apps play an important role in controlling transmission. However, privacy concerns may compromise the population’s willingness to adopt this mobile health (mHealth) technology. Based on the privacy calculus theory, this study aims to examine what factors drive or hinder adoption and disclosure, considering the moderating role of age and health status.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a European country hit by the pandemic that has recently launched a COVID-19 contact-tracing app. Data from 504 potential users was analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings
Results indicate that perceived benefits and privacy concerns impact adoption and disclosure and confirm the existence of a privacy paradox. However, for young and healthy users, only benefits have a significant effect. Moreover, older people value more personal than societal benefits while for respondents with a chronical disease privacy concerns outweigh personal benefits.
Originality/value
The study contributes to consumer privacy research and to the mHealth literature, where privacy issues have been rarely explored, particularly regarding COVID-19 contact-tracing apps. The study re-examines the privacy calculus by incorporating societal benefits and moving from a traditional “self-focus” approach to an “other-focus” perspective. This study further adds to prior research by examining the moderating role of age and health condition, two COVID-19 risk factors. This study thus offers critical insights for governments and health organizations aiming to use these tools to reduce COVID-19 transmission rates.
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Juhi Gahlot Sarkar and Abhigyan Sarkar
The purpose of this paper is to investigate various factors that shape young adult consumers’ smartphone-based service app involvement and their subsequent development of brand…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate various factors that shape young adult consumers’ smartphone-based service app involvement and their subsequent development of brand loyalty for the app.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was conducted to test the hypothesized relationships. The survey data were analyzed using SPSS-based PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013).
Findings
The study results show that consumer can perceive an app to be largely hedonic or utilitarian, and the perceived app design (hedonic vs utilitarian) impacts consumers’ involvement with a particular service app category. Further, the findings elucidate that the impact of app hedonism on app category involvement is moderated by consumer’s surfing task orientation and the extent to which app arouses their imagination. On the other hand, the impact of app utilitarianism on app involvement is moderated by consumer’s information-seeking task orientation and perceived relevance of the information. Finally, app category involvement predicts loyalty toward a particular brand in the service app category. The effect of app involvement on brand loyalty is moderated by hot and cold brand relationship quality in cases of hedonic and utilitarian apps, respectively.
Originality/value
The value of this research lies in identifying relevant managerially actionable moderators that shape the relationships between perceived dominant app design (hedonic vs utilitarian), app category involvement and app brand loyalty.
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Robert Zimmermann, Daniel Mora, Douglas Cirqueira, Markus Helfert, Marija Bezbradica, Dirk Werth, Wolfgang Jonas Weitzl, René Riedl and Andreas Auinger
The transition to omnichannel retail is the recognized future of retail, which uses digital technologies (e.g. augmented reality shopping assistants) to enhance the customer…
Abstract
Purpose
The transition to omnichannel retail is the recognized future of retail, which uses digital technologies (e.g. augmented reality shopping assistants) to enhance the customer shopping experience. However, retailers struggle with the implementation of such technologies in brick-and-mortar stores. Against this background, the present study investigates the impact of a smartphone-based augmented reality shopping assistant application, which uses personalized recommendations and explainable artificial intelligence features on customer shopping experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors follow a design science research approach to develop a shopping assistant application artifact, evaluated by means of an online experiment (n = 252), providing both qualitative and quantitative data.
Findings
Results indicate a positive impact of the augmented reality shopping assistant application on customers' perception of brick-and-mortar shopping experiences. Based on the empirical insights this study also identifies possible improvements of the artifact.
Research limitations/implications
This study's assessment is limited to an online evaluation approach. Therefore, future studies should test actual usage of the technology in brick-and-mortar stores. Contrary to the suggestions of established theories (i.e. technology acceptance model, uses and gratification theory), this study shows that an increase of shopping experience does not always convert into an increase in the intention to purchase or to visit a brick-and-mortar store. Additionally, this study provides novel design principles and ideas for crafting augmented reality shopping assistant applications that can be used by future researchers to create advanced versions of such applications.
Practical implications
This paper demonstrates that a shopping assistant artifact provides a good opportunity to enhance users' shopping experience on their path-to-purchase, as it can support customers by providing rich information (e.g. explainable recommendations) for decision-making along the customer shopping journey.
Originality/value
This paper shows that smartphone-based augmented reality shopping assistant applications have the potential to increase the competitive power of brick-and-mortar retailers.
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Catherine Annis, Jinghui (Jove) Hou and Tian Tang
The purpose of this paper is to understand citizens' perceptions of smartphone-based city management apps and to identify facilitators and barriers that influence app adoption and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand citizens' perceptions of smartphone-based city management apps and to identify facilitators and barriers that influence app adoption and use. An aim is to identify how current technology adoption theories might be expanded and enriched for studying citizen adoption of city apps in the US.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a qualitative exploratory case study of citizen perceptions of city management apps in Tallahassee, a top-ranked digital city in the southeastern United States. The authors derive empirical data from focus group discussions with citizens using thematic analysis.
Findings
Overall, the findings suggest that city management apps are primarily perceived and used by citizens as handy and efficient tools for the provision of information and public services. The findings suggest that current technology adoption and use models applied to citizen adoption of m-government may benefit by being expanded for the US context.
Originality/value
This paper highlights what factors of m-government technology are effective, useful or inhibiting in citizens' lives from the perspective of a group of citizens in the southeastern US. Implications that might be learned for researchers and practitioners are discussed.
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Dandan Ma, Jia Tina Du, Yonghua Cen and Peng Wu
The purpose of this paper is to identify enablers and inhibitors to the adoption of mobile internet services by socioeconomically disadvantaged people: an understudied population…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify enablers and inhibitors to the adoption of mobile internet services by socioeconomically disadvantaged people: an understudied population adversely affected by digital inequality.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative study combining a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. In total, 32 socioeconomically disadvantaged people explored mobile lottery services and subsequently were asked a series of semi-structured questions about their perceptions of the technology.
Findings
Users’ attitudes toward mobile internet services were ambivalent. They experienced some advantages of smartphones (including escaping spatiotemporal constrains, fashionableness, privacy, and cost-effectiveness) and conceived of mobile internet services in terms of social advantages (including their ubiquitous nature, fitting in socially and fear of being “left behind”). However, they also experienced barriers and concerns, such as limited mobile data packages, external barriers from mobile services (including security concerns, complex online help tutorials, irrelevant pop-ups, and a lack of personalized services) and internal psychological barriers (including technophobia, self-concept, and habitus).
Research limitations/implications
The findings are of limited generalizability due to the small size of the sample. However, the study has implications for understanding the acceptance of technology among socioeconomically disadvantaged people.
Social implications
The study has social implications for bridging digital inequality in terms of socioeconomic status.
Originality/value
While previous studies have primarily focused on enablers of adopting mobile internet services by active users, this study reveals both the promise of and the barriers to the use of such services by inactive users who comprise an under-served population.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of smartphone apps in fostering effectual thinking. The paper considers both the effectual development of entrepreneurial…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of smartphone apps in fostering effectual thinking. The paper considers both the effectual development of entrepreneurial ideas and the associated change in entrepreneurial confidence and perceived entrepreneurial skills of students at a UK Higher Education Institution.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was conducted with 60 first year undergraduate management students who had not previously undertaken enterprise education. Students were divided into three groups: the first was given a process-based briefing on developing entrepreneurial ideas; the second the process-based briefing and an additional method-based briefing on developing entrepreneurial ideas; while the third the same process-based briefing and use of the smartphone application as a method-based learning tool.
Findings
The results show the value of method-based teaching and the potential value of smartphone based learning tool to support independent method-based learning. Compared to the process-based approach, the method-based approach is shown to have an increased effect on the development of entrepreneurial ideas, as well as increasing entrepreneurial confidence and entrepreneurial skill of the participants.
Practical implications
Implications for the future development of enterprise and entrepreneurial education are presented, referring to factors which enable entrepreneurial ideas to be developed and how pedagogical approaches shape this.
Originality/value
The study adds to the emergent literature on enterprise education by evidencing the need to develop new approaches and identify in what ways these may be informed by a more effectual approach.
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Bronwyn Howell and Petrus H. Potgieter
The Australian and New Zealand governments have released smartphone-based apps to complement contact tracing in the event that they face a resurgence of COVID-19 infections. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The Australian and New Zealand governments have released smartphone-based apps to complement contact tracing in the event that they face a resurgence of COVID-19 infections. The apps form part of both countries’ policies to support a return to social and economic engagement following extended lockdowns. This paper aims to investigate the extent to which the two approaches are fit for purpose and compare their functional characteristics.
Design/methodology/approach
Using process mapping and analysis, this paper evaluates the potential of the two apps to improve the performance of existing contact tracing systems across a range of efficiency and effectiveness criteria with an emphasis on the framework proposed by Verrall (2020).
Findings
The Bluetooth-based Australian app appears likely to assist that country’s contact tracing system to perform more efficiently and effectively in the event of a resurgence of the virus and should increase confidence in re-engagement. The New Zealand QR code-based app, however, is not well-aligned with these objectives. Its interaction with a range of other regulations and obligations, combined with the inconvenience it imposes on its users, is likely to militate against its use. Bluetooth-based apps based on interactions between individuals likely better support these population-based objectives than QR code-based location-specific apps.
Originality/value
This paper provides an original and extensive analysis of the functionality and effectiveness of Australia and New Zealand’s official contact-tracing apps.
Details