Evaluation of M-Sites Using PDAs

As mobile sites (m-sites) are introduced a very relevant question to ask is “How should these sites be different from the typical websites developed for desktop PCs?” This paper presents an initial, exploratory attempt to address some issues related to m-sites. This evaluation of sites was conducted using wireless PDAs in a WLAN environment. The results indicated that regular sites and m-sites differed significantly in perceived search engine functionality. The evaluated m-sites showed little differences across various industries. A discussion of these results as well as recommendations for managers and academic researchers are provided

Assessing Progress In Advertising-Related Scale Development & Usage

An awareness in the advertising industry of the inadequacy of current practices in copy testing led to the development of  PACT (Positioning Advertising Copy Testing), a statement of fundamental copy testing principles developed by  twenty-one of the world's leading advertising agencies.  A primary concern of this coalition was that too much reliance had been placed on single-item measures to assess the performance of ads, with a concurrent lack of validation of the measures being used.  Subsequently, few studies have followed up on the PACT recommendations, resulting in little in the way of objective data to assess the progress made in the development and use of multi-item scales.  This study offers an initial examination of the progress made in response to the PACT recommendations by developing an inventory and evaluation of advertising-related scales.  Insights from this analysis lead to specific observations regarding the state of the art in advertising research as well as recommendations for future scale research

Measuring innovation and technology acceptance

There is little doubt that the health of economies in the modern world depend heavily on new products being routinely introduced and readily accepted by consumers. Given that, a book is ripe for development that provides consumer insight researchers with reliable measures that have been used by social scientists in the study of the adoption of innovations. This book contains descriptions and reviews of 30 multi-item scales that are especially relevant to the study of consumers' thoughts and behaviors regarding innovations, particularly those of a high-tech nature. Each review in the book has information about a scale's source, its psychometric quality, examples of who has used it in empirical research, and the questions/statements that compose the measure

The role of social influence on adoption of high tech innovations: The moderating effect of public/private consumption

As technological innovations have become an integral part of the world economy in recent decades, predicting acceptance of those products has become a major goal of many researchers in academia and industry. The main objective of this study is to examine the role of social influence and the moderating effect of a product's public/private status on consumers' intended adoption of high-tech innovations. The results indicate that both social influence and adoption attitude have positive effects on consumer intention to adopt an innovation. Specifically, the effect of social influence on adoption intention is fully mediated by consumer attitude. Further, the relationship between social influence and adoption intention is stronger when an innovation is publicly consumed rather than privately consumed. Implications and future research directions are discussed.Social influence Adoption High tech innovations Public/private consumption

Quantifying Narrative Ability in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Computational Linguistic Analysis of Narrative Coherence

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is characterized by difficulties with social communication and functioning, and ritualistic/repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). While substantial heterogeneity exists in symptom expression, impairments in language discourse skills, including narrative, are universally observed (Tager-Flusberg, Paul, & Lord, 2005). This study applied a computational linguistic tool, Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), to objectively characterize narrative performance in ASD across two narrative contexts differing in interpersonal and cognitive demands. Results indicated that individuals with ASD produced narratives comparable in semantic content to those from controls when narrating from a picture book, but produced narratives diminished in semantic quality in a more demanding narrative recall task. Results are discussed in terms of the utility of LSA as a quantitative, objective, and efficient measure of narrative ability

Image congruence and the adoption of service innovations

In this article, the authors investigate whether the fit between consumers' image and the image of an innovation, commonly referred to as image congruence, has an impact on customers' attitudes toward innovative services as well as the intention to use these new services. Moreover, situational influences (i.e., private vs. public, and friends vs. colleagues) are examined. The results of the two experiments show that not only does image congruence have a significant impact on consumer attitudes and the adoption decision, but there is also an interaction between image congruence and the consumption situation. Contrary to the authors' expectations, consumers with low image congruence are influenced more by their surroundings than consumers with high image congruence. It seems that as long as the fit between the consumer's self-image and the service image is high, signals from the consumer's environment are overruled. © 2005 Sage Publications