Introducing an M-Commerce Course into the Business Management Curriculum: Experiences and Recommendations

Mobility has become an important extension to the business strategies of present-day organizations. Thus, organizations are increasingly seeking managers with knowledge of value chain related to mobile-oriented business activities, usually referred to as mobile commerce (m-commerce). Accordingly, business management schools are interesting in designing their curricula to respond to the need for m-commerce knowledge and, in particular, the scope of the content for an m-commerce course. The general conception of m-commerce is that it is a component of e-business or e-commerce. This paper presents the unique dimensions of m-commerce that makes it stand out as a separate course for postgraduate business management students. This paper also provides input in regard to the design and delivery of the course by drawing upon the recent teaching experience of the authors at a highly respected business school in India. The course design covers mobility-related technology elements as related to business in diverse industry segments and is expected to enable students to develop a suitable mobile strategy for a real-time business scenario. The course content was drawn primarily from research papers, industry reports, and examples of trending mobile applications. The pedagogy was a blend of lectures and classroom exercises on innovative case studies. The response of the students to the course indicated a high degree of satisfaction in regard to its relevance. The inputs provided in this paper are believed to serve as guidance to business management schools that are interested developing such a course

Assessing Quality of Consumer Reviews in Mobile Application Markets: A Principal Component Analysis Approach

This study presents a simple, theory-based method for calculating a metric which reflects the quality of online consumer reviews in mobile application markets. Derived from prior online consumer review studies based on psychology, information quality, and economics literature, a metric for measuring online consumer review quality is developed. The metric is a weighted sum of three variables (Squared Star Rating, Log-transformed Word Count, and Sum of Squared Negative and Positive Sentiment), and weights for calculating the metric are estimated by using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) technique. Preliminary assessment of the proposed method shows that metrics computed by using the proposed method are positively correlated with helpfulness ranks of mobile application reviews in Google Play. However, PCA results show that one of the variables (i.e., sentiment) used for developing the metric did not load consistently on the first factor component. From the findings of the preliminary evaluation on the metric, limitations and future research directions of the proposed method are discussed

Developing an a-Priori Model of Online Review Process

More and more online feedback is being relied upon to make choices about the purchases and services we use daily. Conversely, companies rely on online reviews to find new customers and understand how people perceive them. Therefore, the online reviewing process and all its entities and processes are salient. Hence, in this research, we analyse online review related trends in research between the years 2000–2021 with an inductive categorization of 181 articles, in over fifty leading academic outlets. Using this categorization, we next investigate trends in the discussion and research on the online reviewer, online review, and review reaction. From these trends, we develop a nomological a-priori net of the online review process. Further, we discuss, some limitations of the current literature, posit research directions for future scholars and address the gaps in the current research on the online review process

User Perceived Requirements for a Mobile Accounting Information System

Mobile technologies are giving rise to significant changes in the way that organisations operate and conduct business. However, up to now no existing online accounting service has been delivered via a mobile channel. While there is a business interest in extending online accounting to mobile devices there is scarce empirical research examining the user requirements of mobile accounting services. Using user requirements elicitation techniques, this research investigated the mobility requirements of customers of an online accounting system offered by a New Zealand based firm. The findings illustrate end-users’ mobility requirements as well as their perceptions of which key accounting software functionalities should be extended and adapted to a mobile channel. The paper concludes with a summary of the findings and recommendations for future research

Dominant Issues and Conceptual Approaches in Mobile Business Research From 2005-2012

This paper undertakes a review and classification of the mobile business (m-business) theme of mobile computing research, with the intention of identifying the dominant issues and conceptual approaches to existing research. It consists of 100 articles published between 2005 and 2012 in a diverse journals focused on information systems, business, and development. The papers are reviewed under the subcategories of Mobile Business Applications/Services; Economics, Strategy and Business Models; and Consumer Acceptance/Adoption. In terms of issues, the review shows a concentration of research on firm-level adoption of mobile technology within first subcategory, whilst mobile business analysis, capturing customer value and responses to competition dominates the second subcategory. Determinants of consumer adoption of mobiles dominate the third subcategory. Similarly, technology adoption models like TAM and UTAUT dominate the conceptual approaches to m-business. There is much room for studies into the strategies adopted by firms to create value for consumers and to sustain the value creation process in response to consumer demands and advances in mobile technologies and applications. The review serves as a useful research synthesis and is excellent for future research on mobile business based on the gaps we have identified

The use of Mobile Phones by SMMEs in a Developing Economy: The Case in South Africa

SMMEs are seen as an important avenue for promoting the economic development in South Africa. With the high prevalence of mobile phones in the country, these devices are seen as a means of leapfrogging the typical technological development path and providing SMMEs with the benefits of mobility and Internet access. A nationwide survey was conducted amongst SMMEs in South Africa to gain an understanding of: their characteristics including the demographics of the owner/manager and characteristics of the business, the use of mobile phones in the business, the relevant skills of the SMMEs’ owner/managers, their means of Internet access, and their business operations challenges. The main findings indicated that despite relatively high levels of education, and despite strong uptake of mobile phones, their usage was very basic and the true benefits of mobile telephony and Internet access were not being realized by the SMMEs. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations made to address the situation

The adoption of mobile commerce services by individuals: A Current State of the Literature

The lack of strong market growth in most Mobile Commerce markets indicates that improved functionality, affordability, and availability of mobile technology do not lead automatically to wide-spread adoption of these services. Therefore, developing an understanding of the factors that influence end-user (consumer) behaviour and acceptance of new mobile services is important at this early stage of the mobile evolution because consumer acceptance is a critical foundation for the continued expansion of the market for mobile services. In this paper we analyse and synthesise the existing literature which focuses on the factors that impact the adoption of mobile commerce services by individuals. We develop an innovative framework to guide this analysis and review 100 studies. Results show a clear imbalance in the existing literature and bias towards some types of adoption factors in favour of other equally important factors

Where are we at with Cloud Computing?: A Descriptive Literature Review

Cloud computing is an exciting area for research, because of its relative novelty and exploding growth. In this paper, we present a descriptive literature review and classification scheme for cloud computing research. The former consists of 58 articles published since the recent inception of cloud computing. Clearly, there is an explosively increasing amount of cloud computing research has been conducted this year. The articles are classified and results are presented, based on a scheme that consists of four main categories: technological issues, business issues, applications, and general. The results show that although current cloud computing research is still skewed towards technological issues, such as performance, network, and data management, new research theme regarding the social and organisational implications of cloud computing is emerging. We hope this review will provide a snapshot and reference source of the current state of cloud computing research and stimulate further research interest

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE ROLE OF DEPENDENCY IN PREDICTING CONTINUANCE INTENTION TO USE UBIQUITOUS MEDIA SYSTEMS: COMBINING A MEDIA SYTEM PERSPECTIVE WITH EXPECTATION-CONFIRMATION THEORIES

The mobile telecommunications landscape has evolved into a highly competitive and complex ecosystem composed of network operators, mobile device manufacturers as well as software, content and service providers. This major shift has strongly impacted the fundamental nature of mobile devices which have now become complex multi-purpose, multi-context ubiquitous media systems. Such change has engendered an urgent need to revisit our understanding of mobile device usage through the lens of theories that encompass the multifaceted nature of ubiquitous systems. Relying on a media perspective, the paper investigates the role of individual media dependency in predicting continuance intention to use ubiquitous media systems. Data collected from 150 smartphone users were used to test the developed conceptual model. The results confirmed the overall effect of ubiquitous media systems dependency on individuals´ reasoned continuance usage decision. The findings suggest that the level of dependency towards a ubiquitous media system inflates the perceived positive attributes about the system: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, as well as the cognitive appraisal about the discrepancies between initial expectations and post-use performance. Theoretical and practical implications developed from these findings are then discussed