Understanding and conceptualising the adoption, use and diffusion of mobile banking in older adults: A research agenda and conceptual framework

Mobile banking has become increasingly important to society; however, not all members of society adopt and/or use it as much as others: older adults, the disabled and lower-income families remain behind in their use and adoption of this service. This finding helped us recognise a research gap and led us to form our primary aim: to understand and explain the factors that influence the adoption, use and diffusion of mobile banking among one of those groups in particular, older adults, in the UK. To form a theoretical understanding, this paper presents a comprehensive review of the surrounding literature in the area and proposes a conceptual framework that can be used for future research. The implications of this research for academia and businesses are also provided in this paper

Assessing the Effectiveness of Big Data Initiatives

There is a great enthusiasm with the prospect of big data among business and industry leaders, academia and researchers. A lot of big data tools and technologies have emerged recently to capture, store, process and analyze big data. One remarkable achievement is that a handful of open source technologies have been introduced by Apache Hadoop Foundation that allows any organization to undertake big data projects. Many big data projects have been implemented during the last few years. This paper explores the benefits achieved with those projects. Big data has been applied in diverse fields including scientific and medical discovery projects, studying social science phenomena, conducting meaningful observations of real-world phenomena and running analytics for healthcare and business. Many business organizations want to find new business opportunities such as fraud detection, customer sensitivity analysis, and new product offerings while some other business organizations are still pondering the long term value of big data investments. Business leaders and managers want to be sure that big data projects can deliver true value and provide long term benefits. This paper provides an account of how recent big data project initiatives have been successful in delivering business value and highlights what technology solutions are primarily used by those big data projects

Exploratory Study of the Adoption and Use of the Smartphone Technology in Emerging Regions: Case of Saudi Arabia

Users\u27 acceptance of a new information technology (IT) is considered to be a key determinant factor of its success. Also, studying users\u27 adoption and use of new IT plays an important role in determining users\u27 needs and reducing business risk, especially in industry segments with rapid changes in IT such as Smartphone technology. Such rapid evolution is influencing consumers\u27 behaviors, their daily lifestyle, the manner of conducting their activities and their ways of consuming and using information. Smartphone technology holds a promising future with an expected global market that could reach US $258 billion by the end of year 2015 [1]. Besides the mobile industry, Smartphone technology introduces a wide range of opportunities and challenges for many related industries that participate directly or indirectly in producing and providing Smartphone services/products to the end users. Moreover, the Smartphone technology is relatively new technology with plenty of room for improvement. Better understanding of users\u27 intentions and their behaviors regarding the adoption and use of the Smartphone technology plays a critical role in determining its success and benefiting all stakeholders. Significant efforts have been made to study and explain users\u27 adoption and use of Smartphone technology. However, most of the empirical research focused on only a limited number of Smartphone aspects or on a specific profession such as doctors and nurses which may neglect other important factors. In emerging regions such as Jordan and China, cultural and social influence showed significant relationships with users\u27 adoption and use of the Smartphone and its related technologies. Saudi Arabia is a developing country that has different cultural and social contexts that could influence users\u27 intention to adopt and use the Smartphone technology. The key factors that influence general users\u27 intention to adopt and use Smartphone technology in Saudi Arabia have not yet been studied and explored in a comprehensive manner. Therefore, the main purpose of this dissertation is to empirically study and explore the key factors that influence general users\u27 adoption and use of the Smartphone in a comprehensive manner in Saudi Arabia. This dissertation starts with a literature review of existing research related to the adoption and use of Smartphone technology. Taxonomy is developed that includes factors that were identified as important in previous research and related to the adoption and use of the Smartphone technology. By using the developed taxonomy and reviewing literature related to the IT adoption theories, a preliminary theoretical research model is developed based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). A number of qualitative methods, namely brainstorming, focus group and individual interviews, have been conducted to evaluate, select and validate the existing factors, as well as introduce new factors, and to identify only the most related factors to be included in the preliminary research model. A survey questionnaire has been developed and validated to survey general users of the Smartphone in Saudi Arabia. A web-based survey has been designed and sent through email to 5,000 randomly selected smartphones users in Saudi Arabia. Data has been statistically analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results indicate that performance expectancy factor, effort expectancy factor, brand influence factor, perceived enjoyment factor and design factor have a positive and significant relationship with users\u27 intention to adopt and use smartphones in Saudi Arabia. Also, the results indicate that the social influence factor has a significant and positive relationship with use behavior or actual use of smartphones in Saudi Arabia. The results of this dissertation provide more insights to practitioners in the smartphones domain and information that contributes to the body of knowledge regarding information technology adoption and its related research, especially in Saudi Arabia

Exploring the Adoption and Use of the Smartphone Technology in Emerging Regions: Case of Saudi Arabia

This paper starts with a preliminary theoretical research model which is developed based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). A number of qualitative methods, namely brainstorming, focus group and individual interviews, have been conducted to evaluate, select and validate the existing factors, as well as introduce new factors, to identify only the most related factors to be included in the preliminary research model. A survey questionnaire has been developed and validated to survey general users of the Smartphone in Saudi Arabia. A web-based survey has been designed and sent through email to 5,000 randomly selected smartphones users in Saudi Arabia. Data has been statistically analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results indicate that performance expectancy construct, effort expectancy construct, brand influence construct, perceived enjoyment construct and design construct have a positive and significant relationship with users\u27 behavioral intention to adopt and use smartphones in Saudi Arabia. Also, the results indicate that social influence construct has a significant and positive relationship with use behavior or actual use of smartphones in Saudi Arabia. © 2016 Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology, Inc

Exploring the Adoption and Use of the Smartphone Technology in Emerging Regions: A Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

Users’ acceptance of a new information technology (IT) is a determining factor of its market success. A solid understanding of the users’ adoption process and use behavior enables a more robust definition of user requirements and better market alignment. This is especially important in markets characterized by rapid technological change such as smartphones. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is often used to assess the factors affecting adoption of new technologies. However, TAM models often omit the role of important variables such as human and social factors in the adoption process. In developing markets such as China, cultural and social influences significantly impact the adoption and use of smartphones and related technologies. Similarly, Saudi Arabia has unique cultural and social contexts that may influence the adoption and use of smartphone technology, but as yet have not been studied in a comprehensive manner. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to develop the foundation for a theoretical research model based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The case of smartphone adoption and use in Saudi Arabia will be its focus

Data Warehouse Governance Best Practices

Maintaining a stable data warehouse becomes quite a challenge if code development, code changes, code performance, systems computing resources usage and configurations of various integration specifications are not done with discipline. As the size of the data warehouse increases the value it brings to an organization also increases. However these benefits come at a cost of maintaining the applications and running the data warehouse efficiently on a twenty four by seven basis. Governance is all about bringing discipline and control in place so that application developers and IT integration engineers follow certain guidelines so that the behavior of a data warehouse application becomes predictable and manageable. In this paper we have defined and explained some of the governance best practices being followed in large enterprise data warehouse of an organization. With a data warehouse governance process in place it can help in maintaining a stable data warehouse. Data warehouse governance can support the development life cycle, maintenance, data quality assurance, and the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act requirements and enforce numerous business requirements

Optimizing the Number of WiMAX Antennas

Emergency communications, voice communications, electronic mail and other internet based communications are becoming vital for communities to function in today’s modern world. When these are lost due to natural or man-made disasters, relief efforts face tremendous difficulties in coordinating the lifesaving services that respond to the disaster. Expediting the restoration of these communications is essential to saving lives. For communities in developing nations with have no existing communication infrastructure, low cost wireless based communications are essential to bring these services to those communities. Today, WiMAX, a communication technology invented by Intel Corporation et al, is meeting those challenges. In this paper we discuss the deployment of WiMAX in those situations and we will focus how can we minimize the number of antennas or transceivers (by sector) one WiMAX tower should have while meeting the needed coverage. In this paper, we will discuss the technology, the possibilities of deploying WiMAX in emerging markets and the benefits of its deployment to help restore communications after natural or man-made disasters. The paper will discuss an operational model that can be used to determine how many antennas will be needed for single pole or tower deployment in these areas. The model will take into consideration the number of anticipated users, the range for the signal, the bandwidth requirements

Columbia River Crossing

The Columbia River Crossing (CRC) is a potential construction project to improve the current Interstate I-5 bridge over the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington. It is not of immediate necessity, but described as needed to address the transportation problems on I-5, and the proposed solution is a mix combination of bridge, public transit and highway solutions. If they do not move forward with a comprehensive long-term solution now, the problems will only get worse