Re-Thinking a Structural Model for M-Phone Paying among South African Consumers

Contemporary payment systems have transformed global businesses extensively. Nevertheless, despite its vast prospects, the widespread utilisation of mobile phone technology for payment transactions (m-phone paying) and reproduction of pecuniary structures has only been hemmed in among a small number of markets. The proliferated reliance on mobile payment services has not been witnessed universally, suggesting that even success stories are still ambivalent and as a result, cannot be easily replicated. This paper is intended to address this issue by evaluating the determining factors towards the continued use of m-phone payment services by existing South African customers. The research model was tested using SMART PLS 3, upon examining the antecedents of users’ intentions toward embracing the emerging mobile phone in commercial transactions. A cross-sectional study was performed on a sample of 474 consumers, wherein security and usefulness were validated as having significant and direct effects on consumers’ attitude towards m-phone paying, of which the latter influences future intentions. The relevance of customers’ future intentions towards m-phone paying was established, thereby sanctioning the idea to include the variable as a proxy for actual usage in technology adoption research. This study provides sound reason for cumulative research that seeks to refine novel models of technology acceptance even further. For marketers and m-phone technologists, understanding the key determinants is vital towards the upgrade and implementation of m-phone payment services. In lieu of this, delivering m-phone applications and payment services that achieve high usage, value and consumer laudation will be an inevitable boon

Internet marketing benefits for South African SME owner-managers

Published ArticleWith the recent explosion of global marketing strategies, business enterprises have to contend with severe and escalating competition. To sustain competitiveness, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa should produce high-quality, customised goods and services efficiently. Adoption of Internet marketing technologies is fundamental towards meeting this challenge. However, the adoption and diffusion of technologies in marketing practices is the outcome of purposeful processes emanating from the realisation by SMEs that adoption of these technologies yields significant paybacks. The purpose of this study was to establish the managers' perceptions of the benefits of Internet marketing adoption in small and medium enterprises. Using a quantitative approach, a questionnaire was administered to owner-managers of small and medium enterprises in the Vaal Triangle in South Africa. A total of 269 questionnaires were completed, returned and considered useful for the survey. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and factor analysis in order to establish the factors considered to be the salient Internet marketing benefits. Four underlying factors were extracted namely: customer relationship building, information gathering, promotion and enhanced productivity. The mean scores indicated that information gathering was perceived as most important, but after sturdier tests for association were applied to the data set, customer relationship management demonstrated the most significant and positive correlation with SME productivity. As such, there is need for the small and medium enterprises to develop strategies to expand and sustain the identified benefits of Internet marketing

Employability as a treatment goal? A Foucauldian discourse analysis

The research aims to understand if the integration of psychological practice with social entrepreneurship can support individuals at risk for social exclusions enhance their employability, while enabling psychological professionals to remain sensitive to social justice. This appears challenging to do in state funded, institutional settings. There is limited evidence to support and explore such integration. However it has been noted that third sector settings can effectively accommodate socially just practice. In light of the above, Foucauldian Discourse Analysis is preliminarily applied to explore how social enterprises construct employability and to examine the implications for practice. The research study is concerned with social justice, with the contextual factors influencing psychological practice and with the integration of psychological practices and social entrepreneurship. The leaders of these social enterprises appeared to draw on discourses of neo-liberal citizenship and neo-liberal paternalism. They constructed employability using psychological constructions of motivation to internalise employability as an assumption and a responsibility of the individual. However, they also resisted aspects of these neo-liberal citizenship and psychological discourses to then integrate those discourses with economic and neo-liberal paternalistic discourses. This appeared useful in managing the aspirational and obliging tensions of their neo-liberal subject position. The participants’ constructions were effective in delineating the contexts and practitioners most appropriate for the implementation of employability enhancement interventions. This appeared to create particular implications for the practice. These implications in turn challenged the possibility of integrating psychological practice with social entrepreneurship. The findings of the analysis were contextualised with existing literature to explore the implications for social justice in integrating these practices to enhance client employability

Barriers to e-marketing adoption among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Vaal Triangle

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to complement existing literature by examining the relevant barriers contributing to the non-adoption of electronic marketing practices by SMEs in the Vaal Triangle. Methodology: Primary data was collected using a quantitative research technique with the use of a structured questionnaire as the survey instrument. A total of 168 businesses were selected randomly and visited within the various municipal areas in the Vaal Triangle. These businesses were visited between August and November 2008. Thirty-two small, medium and medium enterprises SMEs refused to participate resulting in 123 usable questionnaires for the purposes of the analysis. Factor analysis was used to examine the robustness of the factor structure using principal component analysis. Findings: A five-dimensional structure was established comprising a 16 item-scale. The major impediments towards the non-adoption of e-marketing include technology incompatibility with target markets, lack of knowledge, stakeholder unreadiness, technology disorientation and technology perception. The reliability analysis, reflected coefficient values ranging from 0.70 to 0.88 indicating satisfactory internal consistency amongst variables within each dimension. Implications: By analysing the barriers that inhibit the adoption of e-marketing strategies among SMEs, marketers are presented with recommended strategies and implications on how to approach the challenges presented by Internet technological advancements. Internet capacities of SMEs may be strengthened through nurturing e-marketing awareness and providing adequate information tools through diverse Internet Marketing training programmes. Originality/Value: SMEs can prove to be a major source of economic growth for many African countries if sufficient guidance and support on how best to overcome the challenges of adopting advanced marketing practices is available

A comprehensive model integrating UTAUT and ECM with espoused cultural values for investigating users' continuance intention of using mobile payment

Zhao, Y., & Bacao, F. (2020). A comprehensive model integrating UTAUT and ECM with espoused cultural values for investigating users' continuance intention of using mobile payment. In Proceedings of the 2020 3rd International Conference on Big Data Technologies, ICBDT 2020 (pp. 155-161). (ACM International Conference Proceeding Series). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3422713.3422754Mobile payment (M-payment), as an emerging financial transaction method has been widely adopted in various contexts. In order to investigate the significance factors and espoused cultural moderators impacting users' M-payment continuance usage intention in China, this study proposes a comprehensive model integrating Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and Expectancy Confirmation Model (ECM) with trust variable espoused by Hofstede's cultural value to investigate factors affecting users' continuance intention of using M-payment. In addition, based on the proposed model, researchers can more accurately explain user' behavior not only corresponding technological perceptions, but also mental expectations and espoused cultural values for various technology continuance acceptance under different cultural background.publishersversionpublishe

An empirical analysis of the determinants of mobile instant messaging appropriation in university learning

Published ArticleResearch on technology adoption often profiles device usability (such as perceived usefulness) and user dispositions (such as perceived ease of use) as the prime determinants of effective technology adoption. Since any process of technology adoption cannot be conceived out of its situated contexts, this paper argues that any pre-occupation with technology acceptance from the perspective of device usability and user dispositions potentially negates enabling contexts that make successful adoption a reality. Contributing to contemporary debates on technology adoption, this study presents flexible mobile learning contexts comprising cost (device cost and communication cost), device capabilities (portability, collaborative capabilities), and learner traits (learner control) as antecedents that enable the sustainable uptake of emerging technologies. To explore the acceptance and capacity of mobile instant messaging systems to improve student performance, the study draws on these antecedents, develops a factor model and empirically tests it on tertiary students at a South African University of Technology. The study involved 223 national diploma and bachelor’s degree students and employed partial least squares for statistical analysis. Overall, the proposed model displayed a good fit with the data and rendered satisfactory explanatory power for students’ acceptance of mobile learning. Findings suggest that device portability, communication cost, collaborative capabilities of device and learner control are the main drivers of flexible learning in mobile environments. Flexible learning context facilitated by learner control was found to have a positive influence on attitude towards mobile learning and exhibited the highest path coefficient of the overall model. The study implication is that educators need to create varied learning opportunities that leverage learner control of learning in mobile learning systems to enhance flexible mobile learning. The study also confirmed the statistical significance of the original Technology Acceptance Model constructs

Ensemble-based multi-filter feature selection method for DDoS detection in cloud computing

Widespread adoption of cloud computing has increased the attractiveness of such services to cybercriminals. Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks targeting the cloud’s bandwidth, services and resources to render the cloud unavailable to both cloud providers, and users are a common form of attacks. In recent times, feature selection has been identified as a pre-processing phase in cloud DDoS attack defence which can potentially increase classification accuracy and reduce computational complexity by identifying important features from the original dataset during supervised learning. In this work, we propose an ensemble-based multi-filter feature selection method that combines the output of four filter methods to achieve an optimum selection. We then perform an extensive experimental evaluation of our proposed method using intrusion detection benchmark dataset, NSL-KDD and decision tree classifier. The findings show that our proposed method can effectively reduce the number of features from 41 to 13 and has a high detection rate and classification accuracy when compared to other classification techniques

Usage of mobile-devices for recreation among the millenial generation

In South Africa, there has been an exponential growth in the number of active mobile device users estimated at over 70% of the total population (approximately 35 million). Adolescents and youth between the ages of 15-24 (referred to as the Millennial Generation) represent the largest demographic group owning and using mobile devices as a social accessory. Notwithstanding the significance of this trajectory for leisure programmers, limited attention has been devoted to studies on the usage of mobile devices for recreation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the usage of mobile devices for recreation purposes among the millennial generation. A quantitative study was followed using a structured questionnaire that incorporated existing scales. From the survey, 269 responses were returned, usable. A factor analytical study revealed six mobile-device recreation dimensions, namely; entertainment, addiction, impulsivity, subjective norms, health and quality of life. Positive and statistically significant correlations were established on all the dimensions indicating convergence. The entertainment sub-scale attained the highest mean score rating (mean=3.997) and also revealed the strongest and most statistically significant contribution towards actual usage (β=0.271, t=4.594). The findings indicate that actual recreation usage is prompted by the perceived enjoyment derived from the mobile device platforms. Strong associations were also established between social norms, quality of life and actual usage. However, such recreational usage has been confirmed to have inevitable consequences such as addiction, impulsivity and health-related problems among the millenials.Keywords: Mobile device, mobile-device recreation, actual usage, millennials