Shahrokh Nikou

Mobile services put in context: A Q-sort analysis

Purpose: Objective of this paper to evaluate mobile services on a limited set of characteristics, e.g. usage context, the Innovativeness of the service, efforts required of users for using the service, the usefulness of the service and the likelihood with which it will be used, in order to show that distinction between services is highly relevant for adoption and acceptance research. Design/method/approach: In this research the mobile services are object of study and therefore an exploratory approach making use of Q-sort methodology is used. Findings: The characteristics of the 48 services under study play an important role when judged on the five dimensions. Advanced services, explicitly exploiting the mobile nature of the services like navigation and localization, embedded in all kind of task and process related activities, stood out as the most innovative services, however these are the least likely to be used because they are expected to fit day-to-day routines and usage context the least. Easy to use services and services that fit most contexts are most likely to be used. Practical implications: Designers of mobile services and applications have to be aware of the subtle interplay between usage context, the service or application to be designed, the ease of use. Only when all these factors are taken into account the services may have value to users. Original value: This is one of the very few studies focused on mobile services, instead of user perception and behavior. In most research on mobile service adoption and acceptance the characteristics of services are threatened as a black box. This paper shows how relevant it is to look into characteristics of mobile services themselves.

The potential of converged mobile telecommunication services: a conjoint analysis

Purpose – Fearing that their voice and SMS business will be substituted by IP‐based services from internet companies, mobile operators are developing various IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) based technologies to enable richer communication services. They reason that since the new rich communication services – such as enhanced presence, group communication and seamless switching between devices and media types within the same communication session – provide secure and more reliable services than those offered by internet companies – Skype, Whatsapp and Google+, for instance – consumers will readily appreciate their services and consequently use them. This paper seeks to address these issues.Design/methodology/approach – To validate these claims, this study analyzes the results of a conjoint survey among 82 respondents in The Netherlands, France and Spain. Are users really willing to adopt these rich communication services and, if so, do issues like reliability, privacy and security impact their decision?Find...

Domestication of smartphones and mobile applications: A quantitative mixed-method study

Smartphones are finding their way into our daily lives. This paper examines the domestication of smartphones by looking at how the way we use mobile applications affects our everyday routines. Data is collected through an innovative quantitative mixed-method approach, combining log data from smartphones and survey (perception) data. We find that there are dimensions of domestication that explain how the use of smartphones affects our daily routines. Contributions are stronger for downloaded applications than for native applications. Especially applications that require interaction with others, such as social media and instant messaging, have a serious impact on our day-to-day routines. As a result, appropriation is core in incorporating smartphones in daily life routines. However, frequency of use and the total number of minutes spent on a given type of application per day affect our everyday routines in different ways. This paper is the first quantitative domestication study that focuses on smartphones rather than feature phones. The theoretical contribution and practical implications are outlined.

Mobile application driven consumer engagement

Abstract The growing popularity of mobile technologies and applications, lead many companies to develop relations with consumers through mobile applications. Therefore, it is important to understand how to design applications based on consumer preferences. This research seeks to understand which features of mobile applications stimulate consumer engagement and lead to continuous use of mobile applications. This study used an online questionnaire to collect data from 246 respondents. The data was analyzed making use of Structural Equations Modeling (SEM). The results indicate that perception of such features as design solutions and information quality will result in higher engagement leading to continuous usage of mobile applications. Moreover, consumer engagement positively influenced users’ intention to continuous usage of mobile applications. Inconsistent with expectation, consumer interaction and functionality features are not found to be positively related to consumer engagement with mobile applications.

Value systems and intentions to interact in social media

An extensive review of the state-of-the-art on value systems.Analysis of social media usage by digital natives.How value systems impact the digital natives interactive behaviour from Theory of Trying perspective.Domain-specific values positively influence behaviour and usage of social media.Global values do not influence domain-specific values. Current research on social media focus on perceptions, behavioural intention, usage, and seldom take value systems into account. Values are expected to impact behaviour directly or indirectly via intervening constructs, for example, attitude. This paper explores, starting from the Theory of Trying, how value systems impact the digital natives interactive behaviour with social media. An empirical research is executed to test a model based on global and domain-specific values, and attitudes towards trying in explaining usage. Based on 116 valid responses from a sample of digital natives, several alternative models were tested. The proposed model based on the theory of trying shows that domain-specific values positively influence behaviour and usage of social media. Attitude towards trying positively mediates the effect of domain-specific values and global values on interactive behaviour with social media. Global values do not influence domain-specific values, nor has a direct impact on behaviour.

SMEs’ online channel expansion: value creating activities

SMEs are faced with new business opportunities through online channels, i.e., electronic commerce and mobile commerce. The model by which they create and capture value is challenged, making the adoption of a business model that fits the organisation a crucial strategic decision. The purpose of this paper is to study value creating activities taken by SMEs when making a transition to an online multichannel context. Sixteen SMEs in Sweden are studied using a qualitative research approach and through the lens of an e-transit business model configuration. The results show that SMEs are required to take various value creating activities denoted as primary and secondary transition activities and that there is a discrepancy between actions taken and their perceived degree of importance. One main conclusion is that the combination of value creating activities an SME should focus on during different stages of an online channel expansion differ depending on the type of transition (e.g., from physical store to electronic commerce or from electronic commerce to mobile commerce) and will change over time.

Digital natives’ intention to interact with social media: Value systems and gender

Abstract Social media research focuses predominantly on the link between attitude, behaviour and intention, and rarely takes value systems into account. Values are expected, through intervening variables, to affect intention directly or indirectly. Starting from the Theory of Trying, the aim of this study is to investigate how value systems affect digital natives’ intention to interact with social media. By using Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), an empirical analysis involving data from 116 social media users is carried out to examine how global and domain-specific values, attitude towards trying and gender affect the intention to interact. The results of a configurational analysis show that gender appears to affect many of the configurations leading to the outcome of interest. There are two configurations in which, regardless of gender, global values, domain-specific values and attitude towards trying cause the outcome. The findings indicate that there is no single condition necessary to ensure the outcome, but there are several different configurations of the conditions lead to outcome of interest.

Fuzzy optimization to improve mobile health and wellness recommendation systems

Abstract In this article, we focus on mobile wellness and health-related applications from the perspective of the level of imprecision present in the data used in the recommendation systems. We propose a general fuzzy optimization model based on chanced constrained optimization to design recommendation systems that can take into consideration (i) the imprecision in the data and (ii) the imprecision by which one can estimate the effect of a recommendation on the user of the system. Our proposal is one of the first to use fuzzy optimization models in health-related decision making problems and the first to define a chance constrained optimization problem for interval-valued fuzzy numbers. The proposed approach identifies a set of actions to be taken by the users in order to optimize general health-related and/or wellness condition of the user from various perspectives. The model is illustrated through the example of walking speed optimization, with an additional numerical experiment offering a comparison with traditional methods.

Mobile Health and Wellness Applications: A Business Model Ontology-Based Review

The rapid-pace development in mobile technology offers tremendous opportunities for both the public and private sector in healthcare domain. Unlike other forms of communications, e.g., the Internet, increasingly ubiquitous use of mobile technology and devices allow mobile health and wellness applications to have a greater impact on how care is delivered. Although, technology is an essential tool for healthcare provision, to fully leverage these opportunities other major issues on the emergence of more patient-centric healthcare solutions need to be addressed. A sustainable business model plays a significant role in exploration and exploitation of mobile health and wellness applications. Therefore, this paper presents a systematic literature review based on a business model ontology, in order to lay the basis for exploitation of these applications. The review shows that the extant literature mainly focuses on the service platforms components of business models and their underlying technological challenges, and that non-technological business model components such as value proposition, organizing and revenue models have not attracted the attention that is deemed necessary for exploitation of mobile health care solutions. This paper cautions that in a highly regulated yet often monopolistic industry such as healthcare, the regulatory and the legal issues must be considered as an external business factors.

Why Controls Are Used in Platform Ecosystems?: An Analytic Hierarchy Process Approach to Rank Roles of Control Mechanisms in Platform Ecosystems

Existing literature on control in software development context considers only the principal-agency relationship between controller and controlee. However, the principal-agency relationship cannot be assumed between ecosystems leader and partners, which are independent organizations. This paper aims to study the critical role played by inter-organizational control mechanisms in a mobile platform ecosystems. Based on an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) approach with 38 experts with diverse backgrounds, this research aims to identify and prioritise the most important roles of control portfolio in the platform ecosystems. Though traditionally controls are primarily used to coordinate between partners with divergent objectives, ecosystems leaders use control primarily to capture a higher share of value of the service. The findings provide further insights on two other roles of control in platform ecosystems: (i) accessing complementary resources and (ii) managing interdependency between partners. This research extends organizational control theory to the context of emerging platform-based ecosystem.