Factors Affecting Individual’s Intention to Purchase Smartphones from Technology Adoption and Technology Dependence Perspectives.

The aim of this research is to identify factors affecting individual’s intention to purchase a Smartphone from the perspectives of technology adoption and technology dependence. This study takes into account the role of cell phone dependence and hedonic aspects of cell phone use, by combining technology acceptance model, diffusion of innovation theory and theory of optimal flow, in order to propose a new model for Smartphone purchase intention. The result of the study indicates that ‘cell phone dependence’, ‘enjoyment associated with using cell phone’ and ‘exposure to Smartphone’ have significant effects on ‘intention to use Smartphone’ which in turn positively affects ‘intention to purchase Smartphone’. This can justify the self-reinforcing increase in Smartphone purchases in recent years. The study concludes that the hedonic aspects of cell phone use and the degree of individuals’ dependence on cell phone are important factors attributing to their intention to purchase a Smartphone

Identifying and measuring the dimensions of risky IT behavior

As the use of personal mobile computing devices is growing exponentially, many organizations are implementing BYOD programs that allow employees access corporate networks using their mobile devices. Consequently, these devices can become a vehicle to transfer the risky IT behavior of individuals to enterprises. The ubiquitous, multifunctional, and highly-connected nature of mobile devices create a unique context for studying risky use of these devices. Previous IS security research has studied adoption of protective technologies. However, there is a lack of research on measuring different dimensions of risky IT behavior and how they can be influenced by using protective technologies. To address this gap, we develop a survey to identify and measure the individuals’ risky IT behaviors on mobile devices. We will then extend our research to investigate antecedents of users’ risky IT behaviors across different devices

Examining the Impact of Emojis on Disaster Communication: A Perspective from the Uncertainty Reduction Theory

Communication is a purposeful process, especially during disasters, when emergency management officials and citizen journalists attempt to disseminate relevant information to as many affected people as possible. X (previously Twitter), a popular computer-mediated communication (CMC) platform, has become an essential resource for disaster information given its ability to facilitate real-time communication. Past studies on disasters have mainly concentrated on the verbal-linguistic conventions of words and hashtags as the means to convey disaster-related information. Little attention has been given to non-verbal linguistic cues, such as emojis. In this study, we investigate the use of emojis in disaster communication on X by using uncertainty reduction theory as the theoretical framework. We measured information uncertainty in individual tweets and assessed whether information conveyed in external URLs mitigated such uncertainty. We also examined how emojis affect information uncertainty and information dissemination. The statistical results from analyzing tweets related to the 2018 California Camp Fire disaster show that information uncertainty has a negative impact on information dissemination, and the negative impact was amplified when emojis depicted items and objects instead of facial expressions. Conversely, external URLs reduced the negative impact. This study sheds light on the influence of emojis on the dissemination of disaster information on X and provides insights for both academia and emergency management practitioners in using CMC platforms

Social Capital Mobilization in Social Networking Services

The advent of internet-enabled mobile devices has ushered in a new era of online social networking. Recently, there has been an increase in the use of mobile internet and rise in social media access via mobile phones. Many social networking services (SNS) have introduced mobile apps for users to access them “on the fly” via smartphones. Our study contributes to the literature by uncovering the relationships between SNS use and social capital mobilization. The results show that SNS intensity and SNS network size influence social capital mobilization both directly and indirectly by increasing social participation. Furthermore, use of mobile applications for social networking significantly increases SNS intensity. Finally, SNS network size is an important predictor of use of SNS mobile applications

How Organizational Resources Influence Benefits of mobile CRM in Organizations?

mCRM (Mobile Customer Relationship Management) system is one of the recent advancements in CRM systems which combines the ubiquitous computing and CRM to enable organizations improve their customer services. This study investigates how various organizational resources influence the benefits organizations gain from their mobile CRM system. Drawing upon resource-based view of the firm and the IS success model proposed by DeLone & McLean, we have proposed a research model linking various resources in an organization to enhance benefits gained from mCRM system. To validate the proposed model, we have developed a survey to collect empirical data from companies using mCRM. We expect that the study help both academic and professionals to understand what organizational resources influence and how organizational benefits of mCRM systems are improved by employing the appropriate resources

When More is More and Less is More: Depth and Breadth of Product Reviews and Their Effects on Review Helpfulness

With the growth of online shopping coupled with mobile technology, user-generated product reviews have become an important source of information for product diagnosticity. A significant academic endeavor has been made to comprehend what information factors of reviews help prospective customers better diagnose products. One such factor is review depth that is estimated by the number of a review’s words. We propose review breadth as an additional factor based on a review’s number of topics—the more review breadth, the more diverse information. By conducting the statistical and predictive analyses, we demonstrate that review breadth reliably measures a review’s information. This study makes academic and practical contributions. For academic researchers, review breadth is worth considering as a factor to estimate a review’s information over and above review depth. Based on the two information factors of review breadth and review depth, practitioners can recommend more helpful product reviews to their prospective customers

How Cell Phone Functionalities Affect Individuals’ Cell Phone Dependence?

The aim of this research is to explain how various cell phone services, features and applications may increase individuals’ degree of cell phone dependence and even lead to cell phone addiction. So far there has been paucity of studies looking into cell phone dependence/addiction from the perspective of adoption and continuation of use of different cell phone services and applications. This study proposes an integrated model for cell phone dependence based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), Diffusion of Innovations theory (DOI), Mobile Phone Technology Adoption Model (MOPTAM) and theory of optimal flow

Does Device Matter? Understanding How User, Device, and Usage Characteristics Influence Risky IT Behaviors of Individuals

Over the past few years, there has been a skyrocketing growth in the use of mobile devices. Mobile devices are ushering in a new era of multi-platform media and a new paradigm of “being-always-connected”. The proliferation of mobile devices, the dramatic growth of cloud computing services, the availability of high-speed mobile internet, and the increase in the functionalities and network connectivity of mobile devices, have led to creation of a phenomenon called BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), which allows employees to connect their personal devices to corporate networks. BYOD is identified as one of the top ten technology trends in 2014 that can multiply the size of mobile workforce in organizations. However, it can also serve as a vehicle that transfers cyber security threats associated with personal mobile devices to the organizations. As BYOD opens the floodgates of various device types and platforms into organizations, identifying different sources of cyber security threats becomes indispensable. So far, there are no studies that investigated how user, device and usage characteristics affect individuals’ protective and risky IT behaviors. The goal of this dissertation is to expand the current literature in IS security by accounting for the roles of user, device, and usage characteristics in protective and risky IT behaviors of individuals. In this study, we extend the protection motivation theory by conceptualizing and measuring the risky IT behaviors of individuals and investigating how user, device, and usage characteristics along with the traditional protection motivation factors, influence individuals’ protective and risky IT behaviors. We collected data using an online survey. The results of our study show that individuals tend to engage in different levels of protective and risky IT behaviors on different types of devices. We also found that certain individual characteristics as well as the variety of applications that individuals use on their computing devices, influence their protective and risky IT behaviors

Topic Diversity of Online Consumer Reviews and Its Effect on Review Helpfulness

Online consumer reviews can help potential buyers increase product diagnosticity and thus decrease product uncertainty. With the rapid growth of mobile and online shopping, understanding factors that influence the helpfulness of consumer reviews becomes crucial. Among other factors, review content as a main vehicle for conveying information has drawn great attention. In this study, we propose a new measure called topic diversity to estimate reviews’ information. By leveraging statistical and predictive analyses, we furnish empirical evidence to demonstrate a reliable relationship between our proposed measure and review helpfulness. Our findings suggest that topic diversity is another measure to estimate reviews’ conveying information along with the number of words. This study contributes to academia and industry, respectively. For academic researchers, the proposed measure enhances our understanding of consumer reviews’ features in association with helpfulness. Industry practitioners can use reviews’ topic diversity to recommend more helpful reviews to potential buyers