Finnish consumers' expectations on developments and changes in payment habits. Survey in connection with the research project 'Finnish payment habits 2010'

The Bank of Finland’s Finnish Payment Habits 2010 project predicts that Finnish payment habits will face substantial changes. The causes for these changes include: the standardisation and integration of European payment systems, development of payment services-related legislation and regulation at EU level, changes in payment services-related cost factors and pricing, and new opportunities offered by technological advances. The last few years have seen a surge in new payment instruments and services. Increasing reliance on information and communication technology is characteristic to the development of these payment instruments, the vast majority of which have however failed to entice consumers. To increase our understanding of changes in payment patterns, this report analyses consumer needs, tastes and payment habits as new payment systems are adopted. Research data was collected in September 2005 using a mail-survey covering the central payment methods and addressed to 2,000 randomly-sampled Finnish consumers. According to our findings, security and trustworthiness are the most important characteristics of any new payment instrument. Other essential characteristics are the ability to produce good transaction-related information, compatibility with shopping and payment habits, accessibility, ease of use, time and cost savings, as well as time and place independence. New payment instruments – electronic billing and paying for shopping by mobile phone – are not likely to supersede conventional payment methods by 2010 when judged by the aforementioned characteristics: Trust and cost factors do not separate consumers well-disposed towards electronic bills and mobile payments from those set against these payment methods. A relatively restricted group of differentiating factors was found. Ease of use is a common differentiating factor for both electronic bills and mobile payments adoption. Additionally, accessibility is a differentiating characteristic in mobile payments adoption.payment habits; payment services to consumers; consumer behaviour; diffusion of innovations; theory of planned behaviour (TPB)

Adoption of a Comprehensive Web-Based Wealth Management Service

The design of electronic financial services differ crucially from that of conventional services due to their inability to adjust sporadically to the needs and wants of consumers, as adaptability is strongly associated with the human component of services production. In this regard, identification of the motives driving adop- tion and consumption is the precondition for successful implementation of electronic services. This article reports the results of a survey conducted for an R&D project with the objective to design an innovative and comprehensive wealth management service for consumers, a service that is offered mainly via the internet. In this study, the authors found that the conventional wisdom of mainstream finance and technology adoption theories, return-risk thinking, and cost-benefit analysis of product characteristics were insufficient to predict adoption. Rather, the adoption decision appears to be dominated by the perceived fit between the new service and the consumer’s established consumption patterns. </p

Successful projects or success in project management - are projects dependent on a methodology?

The purpose of this paper is to bridge two seemingly disparate views of project management: proponents of project management methodologies promote a view where a standard set of predefined project practices guarantee project success, while a contingent view of projects suggests that project management needs to be adaptive to project actuality and context. Our aim in this paper is to understand how these different forms of managing projects impact project success. We investigate projects through a lens of discretion, defined as autonomy in the project team to adapt the project to its context as opposed to a reliance on a pre-defined set of rules for project management. We also look at the role of exploration, that is, whether the project focuses on the development of new knowledge, or whether the focus is on furthering existing competences. Based on our analysis, we propose a framework to determine the right amount of discretion in a project, highlighting which project management methodology is suited for the work at hand or whether discarding methodology altogether is more likely to lead to project success

What’s the difference between work and fun? : Explaining the difference between utilitarian and hedonic IT use

Information systems theory tells us that the deepest going difference between utilitarian and hedonic information technology use is that different sets of motivational factors direct the two types of use. However, recent advances in social sychology and consumer behavior research suggest that there is an even more profound difference: Only utilitarian IT use depends on the self-control mechanism and the limited resources consumed bμ exercise of self-control. This causes the daily and weekly rhythms of utilitarian and hedonic use to be different. Utilitarian information technology use decreases throughout the day and the week while hedonic information technology use does not. In this paper, we test for the first time whether the daily consumption pattern of utilitarian information technology use indeed reflects the hypothesized patterns at the aggregate level. Our data suggests that it does, which means that the self-control mechanism should be integrated in the information systems models that seek to explain information technology use.Peer reviewe

Once You Step Over the First Line, You Become Sensitized to the Next: Towards a Gateway Theory of Online Participation

This article proposes a gateway theory as a promising alternative to the traditional antecedents-based view of online participation. The traditional view contends that people plan their online participation based on some rational motivations, leading to a foreseeable route. We arrived at our proposition through two entrance stories. These stories offer rich descriptions of formative experiences and consequent participation progression. Our proposition of the gateway theory consists of two parts: First, participation occurs with uncertainty, involving trial and error, unknown risks and rewards, and the availability of technology-facilitated services. Second, participation consists of sequences of activities, in which each step sensitizes the person to opportunities previously not acknowledged. Consistent with the metaphor of the gateway, the first encounter may often be the most critical step. We argue that the gateway theory offers major opportunities for future research, particularly in conceptualizing the early stages of an individual’s path of online participation

A FORK IN THE ROAD: A CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF ONLINE CONSUMER ITERATIVE SEARCH

Lower searching cost and access to large amounts of information on the Internet are making a consumer’s search more iterative. Through a synthesis of literature from consumer behaviour and information science, we propose a process model of online consumer search in which a consumer may move forward in the process towards a final product selection, but also is likely to backtrack to an earlier stage to revise their search. Our process model steps through a consumer’s need, search criteria, alternatives, evaluation, and final selection, including an option of iteration within the evaluation stage. Future research will fully investigate the entire process model, but in this paper we focus on the evaluation stage and the resulting search iteration. In the online context, as a consumer evaluates alternative products, the consumer is also engaged in a learning process where the consumer may identify the need to update the functional product attributes and/or the hedonic product attributes of the search criteria or alternatives, which leads to a new iteration of the search process. The product consumption goals of a consumer (i.e., prevention, promotion) are theorized to also influence the search process leading to iteration. Hypotheses and future research opportunities are outlined

Successful projects or success in project management - are projects dependent on a methodology?

The purpose of this paper is to bridge two seemingly disparate views of project management: proponents of project management methodologies promote a view where a standard set of predefined project practices guarantee project success, while a contingent view of projects suggests that project management needs to be adaptive to project actuality and context. Our aim in this paper is to understand how these different forms of managing projects impact project success. We investigate projects through a lens of discretion, defined as autonomy in the project team to adapt the project to its context as opposed to a reliance on a pre-defined set of rules for project management. We also look at the role of exploration, that is, whether the project focuses on the development of new knowledge, or whether the focus is on furthering existing competences. Based on our analysis, we propose a framework to determine the right amount of discretion in a project, highlighting which project management methodology is suited for the work at hand or whether discarding methodology altogether is more likely to lead to project success