Hsin Chen

A Meta-analysis of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)

The originating article of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) has been cited by a large number of studies. However, a detailed examination of such citations revealed that only small proportion (43 articles) of these citations actually utilized the theory or its constructs in their empirical research for examining IS/IT related issues. In order to examine whether the theory is performing consistently well across various studies, this research aims to undertake a statistical meta-analysis of findings reported in 43 published studies that have actually utilized UTAUT or its constructs in their empirical research. Findings reveal the underperformance of theory in subsequent studies in comparison to the performance of UTAUT reported in the originating article. The limitations experienced while conducting the meta-analysis, recommendations, and the future scope for the further research in this area have also been briefly explained in concluding section.

Broadband adoption in Pakistan

The aim of this study is to provide a context for understanding the factors affecting the adoption of broadband internet in a developing country context, in this instance, Pakistan. In order to achieve the stated aim, this study identified and examined various attitudinal, normative and control factors to provide insights into broadband adoption. The data on these variables was collected using a survey approach. A self-administered questionnaire was sent between October and December 2006 to 275 consumers, with a total of 237 responses obtained from the respondents. The findings of this paper suggest that primary influence, facilitating conditions resources, cost and perceived ease of use are significant factors for explaining behavioural intentions to adopt broadband in Pakistan. The paper also outlines the theoretical contributions, implications for practice and limitations of this research.

Exploring the commercial value of social networks: Enhancing consumers’ brand experience through Facebook pages

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the factors which impact upon the consumers’ willingness to utilise company Facebook pages and e-word-of mouth by proposing and testing a conceptual framework which is inspired by theories in marketing and information systems fields. The authors believe that only by applying both theories will provide a more complete understanding of the relationship between brand experience and Facebook. The research model attempts to illustrate the factors according to customers’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and their impact on brand experience, brand Facebook page loyalty and e-word-of-mouth (E-WOM). Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted an online survey method for data collection. The subjects the authors used were Facebook users. The data were collected in Taiwan over spring 2011. The authors then used the structural equation model to analyse the data collected. Findings – The findings suggest that users are influenced by the technical characteri...

Investigating the integration of SMEs' information systems: an exploratory case study

The need for business to exchange real-time information has grown since the adoption of e-commerce technology. To address this need, organisations might have to integrate their IT infrastructures. Until now, integration is frequently cited as being a sore point within organisations. For small- and medium-sized entrepreneurships (SMEs), integration is a significant problem due to high costs and technology requirements. Some cases show that SMEs can improve their competitiveness by integrating their systems with their suppliers, or other trading partners. Existing approaches to integration like electronic data interchange (EDI) might support SMEs to overcome part of the integration problems but they have their limitations. Today, web services can be exploited to further simplify unadorned integration problems. This paper presents an investigation and analysis on the integration of SMEs by reviewing the normative literature. In addition, a case study was conducted to explore the integration efforts of SMEs and understand how they respond to integration problem.

Maturity of supply chain integration within small- and medium-sized enterprises: lessons from the Taiwan IT manufacturing sector

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are known to lack behind in terms of the adoption and exploitation of information and communication technology (ICT). In this paper, we explore the area of ICT adoption in the Taiwanese information technology manufacturing sector within SMEs based on a multiple case study research. The findings suggest that small enterprises were in the initial stages of the process maturity of their supply chain. Seven types of ICT connections used by the case companies to support their supply chains were identified which show that most of the companies stayed in the lower level of supplier chain management integration without exploiting the benefits of ICT in full. Our results provide a better understanding on ICT adoption for supply chain integration by SMEs in practice.

Can internet blogs be used as an effective advertising tool? The role of product blog type and brand awareness

Purpose – As blogs have become an important information communication medium, selecting blog types that are appropriate and effective for the products they are to promote is now an important issue in corporate advertising. However, the impact of different blog types on consumers and their advertising effectiveness are issues seldom addressed in the existing literature. The purpose of this paper is to view product information that consumers post on blogs as advertisements and compares advertising effectiveness between different blog types to help enterprises properly employ blogs in their marketing campaigns. Design/methodology/approach – An experimental design was adopted, and 12 experimental contexts were designed. A valid sample of over 2,000 responses was collected to study between-group differences in advertising effectiveness. Findings – The analytical results showed between-group difference in advertising effectiveness, which indicated that blog advertising effectiveness varies with different combin...

An e-government initiative to support supply chain integration for small to medium sized enterprises: successes and challenges

The paper highlights the importance of the e-government initiative to support the supply chain integration among Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs). It has been reported that organisations need to integrate their Information Technology (IT) infrastructures to support the integration of their supply chains to increase their efficiency. However, the current research suggests that Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs), due to their lack of expertise and financial resources to invest in the necessary technologies, seem to need further support from the government in their efforts to adopt IT. Therefore, the role of the government is fundamental in supporting them to adopt supply chain management technologies, especially in geographical contexts such as this of Taiwan. A case study is therefore carried out in this paper to study an initiative taken in Taiwan by the government in order to help the supply chain integration of Taiwanese IT manufacturing companies. The findings suggest that the adoption of IT by SMEs (i.e. suppliers) is very much dependent on external forces (resource-dependency view), thus the government has a very important role to play when it comes to supporting SMEs to join supply chain networks. In doing so, this research provides a broader understanding of the phenomenon of e-government initiatives to support supply chain integration in practice.

Green IT Logistics in a Greek Retailer: Grand Successes and Minor Failures

Environmental sustainability is one of the issues that organizations need to face today. Nevertheless, Green IT practices have their disadvantages, especially financial ones, which make the green logistic topic controversial to organizations. Achieving zero emissions while receiving financial benefits is idealistic thus companies need to adapt specific green strategies according to their particular needs. This study analyzes a specific company in terms of its green logistics strategy in order to discover any shortcomings and to depict how issues from literature review can influence the operation of the organization. This company is a super market chain dominant in the market of northern Greece. Focusing on the e-logistics of the firm, issues such as warehouse management system, inventory control, transportation, distribution and reverse logistics are examined in combination with the environmental consciousness. Our results could be useful to companies looking to exploit Green IT logistics.

Supply chain integration in the IT manufacturing sector: how integration technologies adoption can improve efficiency

Manufacturers are under pressure nowadays to better manage the supply chain and to improve manufacturing efficiency and logistics operations while remaining responsive to changing market conditions and customer demands. Organisations might need to integrate their information technology (IT) infrastructures to support the integration of their supply chains and increase their efficiency. Supply chain integration is considered as an important issue as nowadays the competition among enterprises is about the efficiency of supply chain, which emphasises on tighter cooperation relationship of overall supply-chain process. Thus, this paper explores the area of supply chain integration employed by 15 Taiwan IT manufacturing companies based on case study strategy to explore how the case companies and their suppliers integrate their supply chains. In doing so, practical implications for supply chain integration adoption are explained as a way to help researchers and organisations to better understand the supply chain integration in practice.