Aaron W. Baur

Mobile banking — insights on its increasing relevance and most common drivers of adoption

The fast advancement of mobile technologies and devices has increased the importance of mobile banking (m-banking) for financial institutions. Even though numerous studies have investigated the drivers of m-banking adoption, up to now there is no study that has critically reviewed the findings of previous efforts and evaluated the results in this field for researchers as well as practitioners. As a consequence, this article explores the most commonly used drivers to examine the adoption of m-banking through a comprehensive and up-to-date literature review of articles published between 2008 and 2011. With it, the results not only indicate that the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was mainly adapted by most m-banking studies but also reveal that the most common drivers of adoption can be categorized into four major dimensions, i.e. perceived usefulness, perceived risk, perceived compatibility and perceived cost. This article gives an introduction to the heightened relevance of m-banking, provides researchers with an overview of frequently harnessed drivers of m-banking adoption as well as future research opportunities and equips practitioners with an understanding for m-banking customers and corresponding managerial decisions.

Harnessing the social web to enhance insights into people's opinions in business, government and public administration

Transparency, participation, and collaboration are the core pillars of open government. For the systematic integration of citizens and other stakeholders into the policy and public value creation process, their opinions, wishes, and complaints first need to be received. In the future, including user-generated content from social media will become a main channel for the enrichment of this information base for public administrative bodies and commercial firms. However, the sheer speed of growth of this constantly updated data pool makes manual work infeasible. The automated gathering, combination, analysis, and visualization of user-generated content from various sources and multiple languages is therefore imperative.In this study, we present a design science research approach to develop a general framework (‘MarketMiner’) to handle large amounts of foreign-language user-generated content. As a first empirical application, we implement the framework in the automotive industry by analyzing Chinese automotive forums for the benefit of English-speaking users. At the same time, the ideas, methods, and insights are transferred to the public sector context, especially in light of the current challenges of a high number of political refugees from Arabic countries entering into the European Union.The results are promising in that MarketMiner can dramatically improve the utilization of multi-language, multi-source social media content. The modular set-up of the artifact allows an easy transfer to additional areas of application.

Cryptocurrencies as a Disruption? Empirical Findings on User Adoption and Future Potential of Bitcoin and Co

In this paper, we examine cryptocurrencies as a potentially disruptive sort of payment method. Due to its relative importance, we focus in particular on Bitcoin. Through an inductive, exploratory interview approach with 13 individuals in three distinct groups, the determinants usability, usefulness, and subjective norm that could make Bitcoin a game-changer are explored. The results reveal that most stakeholders consider perceived ease of use still rather low, with perceived usefulness varying according to the user group. The notion of Bitcoin as having much future potential as a payment method is confirmed across all interviewees. Interestingly, the underlying concept of a blockchain is also seen as a potential revolutionary way to create a more just society based on open platforms and open data. However, the reasons of why Bitcoin is actually a disruption to existing solutions varies widely.

Customer is King? A Framework to Shift from Cost- to Value-Based Pricing in Software as a Service: The Case of Business Intelligence Software

With a shift from the purchase of a product to the delivery of a service, cloud computing has revolutionized the software industry. Its cost structure has changed with the introduction of Software as a Service (SaaS), resulting in decreasing variable costs and necessary amendments to the software vendors’ pricing models. In order to justify the gap between the software’s price and the incremental cost of adding a new customer, it is essential for the vendor to focus on the added value for the client. This shift from cost- to value-based pricing models has so far not been thoroughly studied. Through literature review and expert interviews, a conceptual model for customer-centric SaaS pricing, especially Business Intelligence & Business Analytics tools, has been developed. The model has then been initially validated by discussions with the top five software players in this realm and builds a strong basis for further theoretical inquiry and practical application.

Big Data, Big Opportunities: Revenue Sources of Social Media Services Besides Advertising

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other players in the social media world have been on the rise during the last couple of years. In contrast to their popularity, their underlying business models are vague and often only linked to advertising. In this explorative study we identify new revenue sources for social media service providers besides advertising. Based on three use cases with Facebook, Tencent, and LinkedIn, we identify three possibly fruitful ways to extend existing social media business models. Subsequently, a survey with 301 respondents changes perspectives on the user’s willingness to pay in order to identify usage-related differences evoked by cultural and external circumstances. Four derived hypotheses lead the way to avenues of further research especially in terms of Big Data analytics with new e-commerce trends like Facebook’s Buy Button.

How pricing of business intelligence and analytics SaaS applications can catch up with their technology

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of software pricing, following the advent of cloud-based business intelligence & analytics (BI & A) Software. A value-based conceptual software model is developed to ignite and structure further research. Design/methodology/approach – A two-step research approach is applied. In step one, the available literature is screened and evaluated, and this is followed by ten semi-structured expert interviews. With that input, a conceptual software pricing model is designed. In step two, this model is validated and refined through discussions with representatives of the five leading business intelligence suites. Findings – The paper sheds light on the value perception of customers and suggests a clear focus on the interaction between customers and vendors, and less on technical issues. The developed customer-centric, value-based pricing framework helps to improve pricing techniques and strategies. Research limitations/implications – The research ...

Multi-homing and Software Firm Performance

Joining or leaving a platform ecosystem is a key strategic decision for software developers. ‘Multi-homing’ is strategy in which a company distributes its products via more than one platform ecosystem in parallel. ‘Single-homing’ is an opposite strategy in which the software is being distributed exclusively via a single platform ecosystem. On one hand, multi-homing can increase customer reach in markets where customers typically single-home. On the other hand, creating a new version of the software product for multi-homing purposes generates, e.g., conversion, maintenance, and marketing cost. Interestingly, multi-homing as a strategic choice in software business has thus far have received surprisingly little academic scrutiny. In particular, there is very little information on whether multi-homing is an economically viable distribution strategy. To fill in this void, we explore the financial performance between single-homers and multi-homers in mobile application ecosystems. We investigate how the decision to multi-home affects firm performance with a sample of mobile application developers. The results imply that the revenue growth has been faster among single-homers while our dataset is biased towards single-homers. This calls for additional research comparing the two distribution strategies. This paper acts as a starting point for a research agenda in order to better understand multi-homing a strategic choice in software business.

Investigating Dual Effects of Social Networking Sites

This paper investigates the dual effects (i.e. benefits and dangers) of a social networking site (SNS). Our dependent variables are subjective vitality and addiction. We employ self-determination theory (SDT), specifically the concepts of autonomous and controlled motivation and hypothesize that social enhancement and enjoyment represent autonomous motivation and contributes to subjective vitality while voyeurism and exhibitionism represent controlled motivation and contribute to SNS addiction. We test our hypotheses with data from 289 student Facebook users using Partial Least Squares (PLS). The results suggest that both social enhancement and enjoyment predict subjective vitality. In contrast, exhibitionism is the sole predictor of SNS addiction while voyeurism has no effect.

Service Complexity and Service Productivity in E-Mobility: New Insights from Emergency and Roadway Breakdown Services

The introduction and wide-spread adaptation of e-mobility influences emergency and roadway breakdown service firms. Service complexity and service productivity are important constructs to measure and monitor where the industry is headed and where firms need to quickly adapt.

Customer Service Experience Through Technology-Enabled Social CRM – An Exploratory Analysis in the Automotive Industry

In recent years, social media and the Web 2.0 have rapidly gained an increasing popularity. Companies have recognized this development and anticipate higher customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer lifetime value through the use of social media for commercial purposes. Social customer relationship management (SCRM) professionalizes the use of social media and aims at value cocreation of companies and their customers. Through a combination of high tech and high touch, this new way of interaction with customers also offers plenty of opportunities to enhance customer service experience.