Pirkko Walden

Adoption of Mobile Devices/Services — Searching for Answers with the UTAUT

The future of mobile telephony is expected to rely on mobile services and the use of mobile services will be an integral part of the revenues to be generated by third generation mobile telephony. The adoption of new mobile services contradicts this proposition as it has been much slower than expected, especially in Europe. Basic services such as SMS, ring tones, icons and logos are still the most popular services. Several reasons have been suggested for the slow adoption rate, ranging from cultural to business models. In this paper we are searching for answers to the adoption rates by testing the applicability of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to explain the acceptance of mobile devices/services. Based on our empirical evidence from a survey conducted in Finland, it seems that the UTAUT to some extent and with some reservations can be used as a starting point to find some explanations for the adoption of mobile devices/services.

Barriers and drivers in the adoption of current and future mobile services in Finland

Finland has long been seen as the most successful country in Europe in terms of the adoption and use of advanced mobile services. In this paper we discuss the importance of understanding the role of (physical, cognitive, security and economic) barriers and benefits (perceived entertainment value and perceived flexibility) of mobile services as well as the role that functional differences of mobile service bundles play in the process of actual and future use of these bundles. Based on a survey we test six models for mobile travel service bundle, GPRS bundle, mobile surveillance bundle, traditional and more advanced entertainment bundles and m-commerce service bundles. Our analysis shows that understanding the actual and future use is only possible when the subtleties of the specific bundles, i.e. the characteristics of the involved services, are taken into account. Differences in technology or service attributes based on technology cannot be treated as neutral.

Adoption of 3G+ services in Finland

Cost-related issues and limitations of the current technology are important thresholds of 3G+ services. Privacy and security are not critical. Benefits are enhanced communication features, flexibility with respect to the users location and the time of day, and convenience and handiness of small, wireless mobile devices.

Creating customer value in online grocery shopping

This paper argues that there are four different ways in which customer value can be created in electronic grocery shopping, but that the chosen business model will set limits to whether – and to what extent – the firm will be able to offer value‐adding services for consumers. The relationship between business models and customer value in online grocery shopping is exemplified, and some practical problems and opportunities in e‐grocering are highlighted by presenting the case of Nettimarket.com, a Finnish Internet grocery business that was founded by an entrepreneur with no previous experience of the industry. His company is a start‐up virtual grocery shop with a business model unattainable by the big industry players. The paper reports on the experiences of the company and the outlook of the entrepreneur after two and three years in business, respectively.

Introducing Web technology in a small peripheral hospitality organization.

The emergence of global electronic markets on the Internet has been seen as an opportunity for small and medium‐sized tourism enterprises to improve their competitive position. However, several barriers hinder small hospitality organizations from capitalizing on IT and the Internet. This paper reports on an action research program of introducing Internet technology in a small hotel located in a peripheral region of Finland. As part of a project funded by the European Union, a complete integrated Web booking and hotel management system was developed, denoting a re‐engineering of many business processes. The system, which features customer online (real‐time) reservation services was an inexpensive, user‐friendly solution specially designed for the purposes of small and medium‐sized hospitality organizations with little prior IT knowledge. In the field of online reservation systems, the hotel is a pioneer, as it is the first independent hotel in Finland to offer online reservation services through a non‐cust...

SELF-BOOKING OF HIGH- AND LOW-COMPLEXITY TRAVEL PRODUCTS: EXPLORATORY FINDINGS

With electronic markets emerging on the Internet, the travel agency has been characterized as the most endangered organization in the travel industry as potential travelers now have the opportunity to bypass intermediaries in the distribution chain. Customers are offered good opportunities for convenient and inexpensive travel bookings on the Internet, but at the same time they face many problems and limitations in this regard. This research empirically examines the issue of self-bookings in travel. It reports on a series of exploratory studies conducted in order to investigate the opportunities offered as well as the problems facing any consumer trying to make his own travel reservations over the Internet today, and especially the differences between high- and low-complexity bookings in this regard. Four hypotheses were uncovered that relate to the issue of the complexity of the booking task, all emanating from the intuitively realistic supposition that low-complexity travel arrangements are better suited for direct distribution over the Internet than high-complexity arrangements. Using reservation and survey data from samples of students, nearly all of which were experienced Internet users, little support was found for the hypothesized relationships.

Mobile TV - To Live or Die by Content

Mobile TV is described as a natural and evolutionary next step as mobile phones get more multimedia features. Mobile network operators expect mobile TV to support the adoption of 3G as they expect consumers to start shifting the use of mobile phones from simply communicating with each others to proactively searching for information. Here the logic is not very clear as TV basically is a broadcast medium for passive reception of content which is pre-selected, produced and transmitted and thus seems to be in contradiction with the aim at a proactive search for information. Then there is another question: do people want mobile TV and if so, when, where and what would they want to watch? We have conducted an empirical study among the participants in a pilot experiment with mobile TV in Finland in order to find out some reasons for a possible adoption and use of mobile TV

Reconsidering the actual and future use of mobile services

For a number of years, Finland was considered one of the most successful countries in Europe in terms of the adoption and use of mobile services. In this paper, we focus on trends in service adoption, by discussing the development in the Finnish telecommunication market and trends in actual and future user behaviour with regard to three groups of mobile services. Based on surveys from 2004, 2005 and 2006, in which the same concepts were measured, we test models in which concepts like innovativeness, flexibility, status and entertainment value are related to mobile travel service, traditional entertainment and mobile Internet services. Our analysis shows that we cannot understand the actual and future use unless we take the characteristics and user values of the specific mobile services into account.

Destination Maui? An Exploratory Assessment of the Efficacy of Self-Booking in Travel

The travel industry, one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world, appears particularly interesting in terms of the possibilities offered by electronic commerce. It is one of the industries where business is already conducted successfully on the Internet and where the importance of electronic commerce is likely to grow. In order to investigate the opportunities offered as well as the problems facing any consumer trying to make his/her own travel reservations on the Internet, an empirical study was conducted among students attending an intermediary level course on Electronic Commerce. The study was divided into two parts, consisting of (i) a quotation competition in which the students were to act as travel agents, submitting an offer for a journey according to some given specifications; and (ii) a measurement, in which the students who submitted offers were asked to report on their booking experiences, especially the problems they encountered during the task. Within the travel industry, t...

Travel MoCo A Mobile Community Service for Tourists

The future competitive advantages for a successful travel industry will most probably be built around effective mobile value services. Mobile value services are services which create customer value with the support of context-adapted mobile technology; this in turn is designed to expand the limits of the possible in the structure of everyday routines. The social aspect in tourism is becoming important. Interacting with other people is found to be a source for tourists to seek information and to make decisions both before, during and after the visit. Earlier research shows that people in general rely more on informal sources such as family and friends than on official channels to satisfy their information needs. We have developed a mobile service called Travel MoCo that allows the user to seek travel related information through social interaction with other people and share experiences with each other anytime and anywhere just by using his/her mobile phone.