Conceptualising the role of innovation--attributes for examining consumer adoption of entertainment--related innovations

Several enhancements and new features have been introduced in the television entertainment industry to offer the viewers with a high quality viewing experience when it comes to contemporary home entertainment services. Tata SKY’s direct-to-home (DTH) service is one such service that has been recently introduced in the Indian context. For achieving an increased adoption rate of this innovation, it is important to gain an understanding of the behaviour of different factors that influence the potential consumers to form positive intentions about such innovations, in turn attracting them to accept and use of such innovations. This paper, thus aims at developing a theory-based conceptual framework for examining the consumer adoption of entertainment related innovations using the innovationattributes that have been acknowledged in the recent literature as having considerable influences on the acceptance of various innovations. Innovation-attributes from Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory, Tornatzky and Klein’s meta-analysis, and Moore and Benbasat’s perceived characteristics of innovating theory will be used here to develop a conceptual framework suitable for investigating the adoption of entertainment related innovations

Factors affecting purchase of online music in Australia

Digital Music is purchased online by an increasing number of consumers and looks set to grow. The purpose of this research is to provide an explanation of factors influencing purchase intention of the Australian consumer of online music. Such a study will help practitioners and marketing managers of online music to better develop market strategies. This research will draw upon the theoretical underpinnings of the Value Intention Framework adapted by Chu and Lu (2007) to examine the willingness of consumers purchasing online music. This model has been previously used to identify consumers in other geographic locations, for example Taiwan, but has not been tested in the Australian context. This research will be undertaken to fulfil the gap identified through previous researchers by examining a model of online music purchase behaviour in the Australian context. The findings will identify whether the perceived value of online music is a significant factor in predicting the purchaser intention of buying online music in Australia. It will also identify whether perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice effects consumers perceived value.The results of this study will facilitate understanding of what encourages and impedes the purchase intention of consumers of online music in Australia. It will afford each player within the Digital Music Value Chain a greater understanding of how to improve the purchase intentions of online music customers in Australia

Factors Influencing Consumers' Acceptance of Mobile Marketing Services

The research of mobile marketing services is still at the early stage and the reason to explain the acceptance as well as the understanding of the actual usage level of mobile marketing services still remains unclear. To investigate this issue, this study has examined the acceptance of mobile marketing services by measuring the consumer's intention and actual usage of mobile marketing services. Grounded by the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB), this study proposes a framework by decomposing attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and perceived risk. A total of 334 full-time university students from four public universities in the Northern Region, Malaysia have participated in this study. Data for all the study variables have been collected through self-administered survey questionnaires. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is the main statistical technique used in this study. The study has shown that the level of the actual usage is at the lower level. The study also reveals that all the main beliefs (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and perceived risk) are found to have significant effect on consumer‟s intention to use mobile marketing services. With regard to antecedents‟ effect on the main beliefs, there are only four factors which are found insignificant namely perceived ease of use, personal innovativeness, media and technology facilitating condition. Whereas, another ten antecedent factors significantly influence the main beliefs. Overall, the results indicate that the model provides a good understanding of the factors that influence intention to use and the actual usage of mobile marketing services. As predicted, decomposition of the main beliefs provides more specific factors that influence the behaviour. Based on the findings, the theoretical and practical implications of the study as well as limitations and suggestions for future studies are also discussed

The relationship between service quality, customer satisfaction and behavioral intention with moderating effects of switching barriers

Service quality and customer satisfaction are believed to affect customer behavior. On that basis, one of the main research focus in marketing field is to get a better understanding in the dynamic relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction, and their impact on customer behavior. Although this research area has been examined quite extensively, the presence and importance of switching barriers in predicting customer behavior are poorly understood in pay television industry. This thesis aims to explain how the concept of switching barriers moderates the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer’s behavioral intention. In addition to that, this research also aims to determine service quality dimensions for the current research setting. Based on the theory of social exchange and theory of planned behavior, a framework depicting the interrelationships among service quality, customer satisfaction, switching barriers and behavioral intention is proposed. The research framework predicts the main effects of main variables and moderating effects of switching barriers. The data were collected among pay TV customers from the state of Johor in two phases. The first phase involved stratified random sampling method which yielded 32 responses, while the second phase involved convenience sampling which yielded 213 responses. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Seven dimensions of service quality were identified: tangibles, reliability, content quality, customer service, convenience, price and interactivity. The findings supported the direct relationships between service quality, customer satisfaction and behavioral intention. Most importantly, there are two novel and important findings in this study that add to the body of literature: first, two components of switching barriers which is switching costs and attractiveness of alternatives do not moderate the relationships between customer satisfaction and behavioral intention; and second, the newly introduced switching barriers’ component, which is the social ties moderate the relationship between customer satisfaction and repurchase intention, and positive recommendation. An important implication of this study is that social ties act as an important factor that will glue customer to stay with an organization

Adoption and Non-Adoption: Profiling Internet Usage among Tourists to New Zealand

Since the explosion of the internet as a business medium, one of its primary uses has been marketing. The advantages of using the internet for business-to-consumer transactions are clear. The openness of the internet is creating opportunities for virtually all companies across various industries. The words 'internet', 'World Wide Web', 'www' or the 'web' refer to the same thing and are used interchangeably within this research study. The tourism industry is also experiencing a rapid adoption of the internet technology for marketing travel products and services. As a destination New Zealand is a small country comprising two main land masses and smaller outlying islands, with a population of about 4 million people (Statistics New Zealand 2004). Tourism is promoted as an essential part of the national economy, particularly to earn foreign exchange and generate employment. The number of international tourists visiting New Zealand is 2.2 million (Tourism New Zealand, 2006). In New Zealand almost all regional tourism organizations (RTOs) have a web presence, thereby exposing potential tourists to an array of destinations to visit. However, there are few New Zealand based studies that profile tourists based on their internet adoption and the differences between internet users and non-users. The question that baffles every business manager is what predisposes consumers to use a website? This is the fundamental question that motivated the study. While usability does play a major role in the adoption and use of a particular website, it is outside the scope of this project, otherwise the scope would have been too large and complicated to permit a useable questionnaire given the other concerns about respondents' past experiences and attitudes toward use of the net for the specific purposes of holiday purchases. The study draws upon innovation diffusion theory (IDT) and more recent conceptualizations of IT adoption behaviour to examine differences among Rogers' (1995) adoption categories. Within this context, 'adoption' refers to the stage in which a technology is selected for use by an individual. 'Diffusion' refers to the stage in which the technology spreads to general use and application. For this study an attempt is made to create a behavioural profile of visitors based on a sample of 517 overseas visitors to New Zealand. Visitors were asked to complete a questionnaire and provide information on their demographics, travel related behaviour, internet usage patterns, perceptions of the internet and online shopping in general. The thesis thus describes the initiation and evolution of an empirical research project, which investigates the adoption and diffusion of internet technologies amongst international visitors to New Zealand. The study was launched in an attempt to: 1) learn more about internet usage by visitors to New Zealand; 2) create a psychographic profile of visitors; 3) attempt to empirically validate the technology acceptance model (TAM); and 4) fill a noticeable void so that future researchers on IT and internet adoption by tourists in New Zealand have a foundation and starting point. Most of the previous research related to TAM has been in workplace related situations while studies in tourism have used students as subjects, rather than actual visitors to a particular destination (Shang et al., 2005, Moon and Kim, 2001, Klopping and McKinney, 2004). Specific market studies undertaken by destination marketing organisations or regional tourism organisations were considered only inasmuch as they aided generalization as place specificity hindered conceptual development pertaining to themes of adoption and general usage patterns. The study seeks to build on Rogers' (1995) seminal work on the diffusion of innovations and make a unique contribution to existing diffusion studies by its focus on the individual visitors as the unit of analysis and by its test of the TAM model. This study presents descriptive results via standard statistical analysis, a cluster analysis of users and a structural equation modelling of the TAM applied within a context of international visitors to New Zealand. The data were collected at major locations - the viaduct basin in Auckland and the international departure lounge at the Christchurch International Airport. The two locations were chosen to enable faster data collection. Initially the data was gathered at the viaduct basin in Auckland but the number of respondents was not many. Since the data collection was slow, decided to collect from Christchurch International airport where departing passengers could be approached. Individual passengers/tourists were approached and a screening question to ascertain if they were visitors or not was asked. If they were visiting, then they were asked to participate in the survey. No prior specific screening was undertaken to determine if they had used internet or not for their trip/travel to New Zealand. However, subsequent analysis shows that only 2.3% of the sample had not used the internet, and 31% of the sample had not bought tourism products or services over the internet. Therefore, overall, experience and internet usage was not uncommon for the majority of the sample, but a large proportion of non-users existed to permit comparative analysis. While there is a bias towards males in the sample, the 19-35 years age group was slightly more numerous for both genders, than were other age groups. The results indicate that mean internet usage is comparatively high, as is familiarity with many electronic consumer durables. The sample possesses a bias toward English speaking countries, younger people and educationally higher qualified people. Internet search engines seem to be the most popular source of search. The socio-demographic variables such as age, gender and educational attainment appeared to be but a moderate influence on general internet usage and thus on the use of the internet for booking holidays. Factor analysis of the attitudinal statements revealed six factors, which accounted for about 60 % of the total variance. The clear emergence of factors enabled the development of clusters. The clusters appear to have significance with reference to usage rates of internet. The home ownership of electronics shows a high percentage of respondents had mobile phones. This implies that New Zealand Tourism has to look at options or possible services it can introduce to market to these people who could be using mobile devices not only in their country but also while travelling in New Zealand. Wireless is another important development in the field of technology and many of the tourism DMO in other developed countries in Europe and US are adapting approaches based on these technologies to market to potential customers

An Expectancy-Value Analysis of Web Gratifications

The present study explored the mechanisms directing Web usage decisions to determine more reliable estimates of the importance of various influences involved. A Web-based survey was administered to respondents who voluntarily participated by responding to a message posted to selected Internet discussion groups. Exploratory factor analysis and covariance structure model were employed to examine the relationships between attitude, expectancies, motivation, intention, and usage regarding the Web. Research evidence spoke strongly against univariate or bivariate motivational schemes. In addition to surveillance and diversion functions that have been found in traditional mass media, the Web also provided two unique qualities, utility and interaction. Approximately one-third of variance in Web usage was explained by expectancy-value judgments or motivations. Other influences, including non-sociological-psychological variables, attributed to Web usage variance remain to be explored. Research findings also indicated that expectancy-value judgments and motives function similarly in determining intention and usage regarding the Web; however, user motives or gratifications appeared to further separate from the general attitude toward the Web. Further improvement in scaling expectancy-value and gratifications items is suggested to attain discriminant and convergent validity. INDEX WORDS: Expectancy-Value, Uses and Gratifications, Web Usag

Future of interactive technologies

The concept of interactivity continuously enhances our day-to-day living, allowing us to experience a more convenient and enjoyable life style. Existing analogue technologies such as the internet, mobile phone and satellite have now entered their digital phase, making it possible to increase their capacity for interactivity. The technologies which provide this increased interactivity, namely the internet, mobile and television, are classed as interactive technologies. Television has been successful at marketing, having launched an interactivity interface known as iTV which initially offered superior commercial prospects. However, after a decade, the iTV industry is still quite young and has not reached its full potential. This thesis adopts a range of research methodology with which to forecast the future of interactive technologies, especially interactive TV (iTV). The uptake of new interactive technologies depends on many factors, notably the existing infrastructure in the country of adoption, cultural attitudes to new technology, the radicalism of the technology, social influences and interactions and ease of use, quality and cost. Beyond these, many other significant factors influence the acceptance of interactive technologies, the focus of this thesis is to ascertain the importance of those factors mentioned on technology adoption. This study has adopted technological and judgemental forecasting techniques to predict the future of interactive technologies, following which Cross- Cultural and Technology Acceptance studies were carried out to investigate interactive technology adoption. In the Cross-Cultural study, survey data were collected from the UK, Hong Kong and Pakistan so as to examine cultural factors pertaining to the likelihood of adoption, while Growth Curves were used to model and forecast future levels of adoption. Then technology trends in different countries were collected from the global marketing database Euromonitor. The Growth Curves, applied to a selection of interactive technologies, were evaluated and compared to identify the most useful model with which to forecast the future of interactive technologies. The findings identified the Bass Model, Simple Logistic Model and Gompertz Model as the most suitable models for the purpose, with different models identified as best for different cultures. The Judgemental study established that WWW will be the dominant service provider for financial services such as banking or financial products, while iTV will be the dominant service provider for entertainment. WWW will in fact be the dominant provider for most of the services, followed by iTV and then WAP. It is most likely that WWW, WAP and iTV will exhibit technology convergence in 20 years' time and in all probability will converge into WWW. Further to this the Cross-Cultural study confirmed that there are significant differences between cultures regarding the acceptance of interactive technologies, as it is affected by demographic and social interactions and influences. In addition, the study showed that each interactive technology has its own significant elements which influence its acceptance. Overall, the key elements identified as influencing acceptance of interactive technologies were Knowledge and Confidence, followed by the number of hours the individual spends with his or her family. The Technology Acceptance study identified a technology acceptance model for each interactive technology: WWW, WAP and iTV, which established the factors expected to influence the future growth of the technology. Managing these significant elements will assist further in promoting the growth of interactive technologiesEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo