A qualitative analysis of innovation adoption in the olive oil extraction process

Pressures on the Italian olive oil sector have increased over the past few years due to seasons of bad weather, small innovation capacity and limited long term investment plans. Thus, it is of interest to explore signs of positive attitude towards innovation investment in the agricultural sector. The focus has been on technologies employed in the extraction process, since yield and quality of olive oil are mostly affected by this stage. To define the determinants of innovation adoption, 13 managers were interviewed. Questions covered organisation factors, personal factors, social factors, the impact of the olive oil value chain and the cost of the extraction machinery. The results of the thematic analysis showed that determinants of innovation adoption were: perceived usefulness, personal innovativeness, prior experience, influence of peers, training and managerial support, and the relative importance of quality, while major challenges are the lack of financial funds, demand pressure from customers, and lack of early warning systems to tackle bad weather conditions

The intention to use mobile digital library technology: A focus group study in the United Arab Emirates

IGI Global (“IGI”) granted Brunel University London the permission to archive this article in BURA (http://bura.brunel.ac.uk).This paper presents a qualitative study on student adoption of mobile library technology in a developing world context. The findings support the applicability of a number of existing constructs from the technology acceptance literature, such as perceived ease of use, social influence and trust. However, they also suggest the need to modify some adoption factors previously found in the literature to fit the specific context of mobile library adoption. Perceived value was found to be a more relevant overarching adoption factor than perceived usefulness for this context. Facilitating conditions were identified as important but these differed somewhat from those covered in earlier literature. The research also uncovered the importance of trialability for this type of application. The findings provide a basis for improving theory in the area of mobile library adoption and suggest a number of practical design recommendations to help designers of mobile library technology to create applications that meet user needs

Cloud computing services : theoretical foundations of ethical and entrepreneurial adoption behaviour

Clouicomputing is an emerging service technology that has ethical and entrepreneurial implications. Due to technological innovations increasing the attention placed on cloud computing services, more people are focusing on the security and privacy issues determined by ethical guidelines and how the technology is evolving as an entrepreneurial service innov.ation. This paper presents a theoretical perspective on how a person adopts cloud computing. The literature on technology innovation and adoption behaviour is examined with a focus on social cognitive theory. A theoretical framework is then presented, which indicates a number of propositions to describe the intention of a person to adopt cloud computing services. The role of technology marketing capability, sustained learning and outcome expectancy are included in helping to understand the role of cloud computing applications. Suggestions for future research and practical implications are stated.<br /

Swift guanxi data analysis and its application to e-commerce retail strategies improvement

E-commerce has changed retail, offering an opportunity to sell products online. Before retailers can take advantage from e-commerce however, they need to understand the factors driving consumers' intentions to purchase online as well as the factors motivating product re-purchase. To date, a number of studies have been commissioned with an aim to support e-retailers in those efforts. These studies show the key role of trust in consumers' initial and continuous use of e-commerce sites. E-retailers however find online trust difficult to establish due to buyer-seller social and temporal separation online. Recent studies argue that this limitation of online channels can be overcome by computer-mediated communication technologies, which enable 'swift guanxi' that facilitates online trust. This study extends this stream of research by analyzing data generated through swift guanxi in order to help retailers establish online trust and improve their online strategies

Factors affecting loyalty of mobile social networks' users

Increasing world-wide trends of using mobile social networks and the rise of competition between different social applications makes it essential for social network providers and marketers to identify the key factors leading to user loyalty. The purpose of this paper is to identify the key factors that affect the loyalty of mobile social networks users. The proposed model was tested through structural equation modeling techniques and an online survey. The sample consisted of 388 mobile social networks users in Iran. The results indicate that sociability, entertainment and fashion are primary drivers of attitude toward a mobile social network. The results also show the significant role of attitude and satisfaction on consumer loyalty. This study helps both marketers and mobile social network providers know the key drivers of customer loyalty in order to tailor their marketing efforts and communication strategies

Technology acceptance: Are NFPs or their workers different?

During the past decade there has been an increasing interest in research within Not-for-Profit (NFP) organisations. Research has indicated that there are a number of characteristics that make NFPs different from other organisations. This paper considers whether workers within the NFP sector have different attitudes to technology and whether such differences affect the measures used within technology acceptance models. An exploratory study of workers within two NFPs indicated that workers within the service delivery functions of NFPs have different attitudes to technology than workers within the standard business functions of a NFP organisation e.g., marketing. These attitudes affected their perceptions of the use of and ease of technology