Shin-Yuan Hung

Critical factors of WAP services adoption: an empirical study

Abstract Mobile commerce is becoming increasingly important in business. Wireless application protocol (WAP) is one of the most widespread technical standards for mobile commerce. Following continuous technical evolution, WAP has now included various new features. However, WAP services continue to struggle for market share. Hence, understanding the adoption of WAP services is increasingly important for enterprises interested in developing mobile commerce. This study aims to: (i) identify the critical factors of WAP services adoption; (ii) explore the relative importance of each factor between WAP adopters and non-adopters; and (iii) examine the causal relationships among variables on WAP services adoption behavior. This study reports empirical test of the adoption of WAP services in Taiwan, based on the theory of planned behavior and innovation diffusion theory. The results indicate that the critical factors influencing the adoption of WAP services include connection speed, service costs, user satisfaction, personal innovativeness, ease of use, peer influence, and facilitating conditions. Some suggestions for subsequent researchers and practitioners seeking to understand WAP services adoption behavior are also provided.

Applying Data Mining to Telecom Churn Management

Abstract Taiwan deregulated its wireless telecommunication services in 1997. Fierce competition followed, and churn management becomes a major focus of mobile operators to retain subscribers via satisfying their needs under resource constraints. One of the challenges is churner prediction. Through empirical evaluation, this study compares various data mining techniques that can assign a ‘propensity-to-churn’ score periodically to each subscriber of a mobile operator. The results indicate that both decision tree and neural network techniques can deliver accurate churn prediction models by using customer demographics, billing information, contract/service status, call detail records, and service change log.

An exploration of the relationship between software development process maturity and project performance

Software projects have a high rate of failure. Organizations have tried to reduce the rate through methodological approaches but with little perceived success. A model of software development maturity (the capability maturity model (CMM)) describes managerial processes that can he used to attack software development difficulties from the managerial control perspective at five maturity levels. Our study examined performance of projects in relation to the activities at these various levels of maturity. A survey of software engineers indicated that the activities associated with the managerial control of development related positively to project performance measures. However, not each level of maturity demonstrated observable benefits, indicating that greater caution is needed in the planning and implementation of the activities.

Critical factors of hospital adoption on CRM system: Organizational and information system perspectives

The recent rapid increase in the amount of medical information has pushed hospitals to confront an essential issue which is how to utilize healthcare information technology to improve healthcare services quality. Customer relationship management system (CRMS) is an innovative technology which facilitates the process to acquire, develop, and maintain customer relationships more efficiently and effectively. From the business perspective, patients represent the major customers of the hospital who receive and feel the healthcare services directly and realistically. Although the critical factors for the adoption of information systems have been identified in previous studies, few have specifically explored CRMS adoption in hospitals despite the fact that it has dramatic impacts on the quality of healthcare services and customer satisfaction. To fill this gap, this study proposes an integrated model that incorporates both organizational and system related factors as primary determiners of CRMS adoption in hospitals. A series of surveys were conducted with three levels of health institutions in Taiwan: medical centers, regional hospitals, and community hospitals. The results indicated that hospital size, IS capabilities of staff, innovation of senior executives, knowledge management capabilities, and relative advantage have significant influence on the CRMS adoption. The research results also reveal constructive suggestions to researchers, hospitals, CRMS vendors, and the government to increase the likelihood of adopting CRMS.

User acceptance of WAP services: test of competing theories

Although wireless application protocol (WAP) service acceptance has long attracted considerable interest, the problem of identifying the best theoretical model among the various prevalent models has been relatively neglected. Recently, a few studies have attempted to examine this issue using the decomposed TPB model. It is rare for one model to be superior to all of the other models in all criteria. WAP service acceptance involves competition among three well-established theoretical models, as follows: the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and the decomposed TPB model. This study compares the effectiveness of these three models in understanding WAP services acceptance. Empirical data were obtained from a field survey in Taiwan. Notable findings were reported for the three competing models, as follows: (1) TPB and decomposed TPB are superior to TAM in terms of their ability to explain user acceptance of WAP services and (2) while the decomposed TPB model provided more easily understood and managerially relevant factors, the TPB model was more parsimonious and had very similar explanatory power to the decomposed TPB model. Finally, the implications of this study are discussed.

Expert versus novice use of the executive support systems: an empirical study

Expertise is essential in problem solving, particularly for executives. Much literature indicates that, in solving daily problems, executives may employ both analytical thinking and intuition. To develop skills and apply intuition, company executives require the use of support devices such as executive support systems (ESS), but their value may differ substantially between experts and novices.Previous research has failed to address the effects of expertise on ESS use. Therefore, this study examines how professionals use them to address business-oriented tasks. The professionals studied were divided into two groups, depending on whether they were experts or novices in the business represented by those tasks. The findings of the experiments show that computer self-efficacy strongly influenced the use of ESS. Moreover, experts felt that the ESS was of greater use when more powerful systems were employed, while the difference for novices between more and less powerful systems was insignificant. Finally, experts rated their user information satisfaction score significantly higher when employing more powerful systems. However, novices rated systems significantly higher only when they cognitively fit the performed task. Implications are discussed.

Regret avoidance as a measure of DSS success: An exploratory study

Assessing the value of decision support systems (DSS) is an important line of research. Traditionally, researchers adopt user satisfaction and decision performance to measure DSS success. In some cases, however, the use of DSS is not benefit driven. Instead, DSS adoption may be motivated by avoiding decision errors or reducing decision cost, indicating that regret avoidance may be a useful measure of DSS success. Regret is a post-decision feeling regarding not having chosen a better alternative. Recent behavioral research has indicated that, in addition to pursuing higher performance and user satisfaction, reducing decision regret is another important consideration for many decision-makers. This exploratory study extends prior research on DSS evaluation by proposing regret avoidance as an additional measure of DSS success. Experimental results regarding the use of DSS for stock investment demonstrate DSS use significantly reduces regret in situations involving low user satisfaction. Consequently, besides decision performance and user satisfaction, regret reduction is also important in measuring the effectiveness of DSS.

The Determinants of RFID Adoption in the Logistics Industry - A Supply Chain Management Perspective

Despite the literature exploring the factors of adopting information technology (IT) applications for the logistics industry, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is still considered an innovative technology, because of its unique characteristics compared with other IT applications. To avoid the negative effects derived from careless IT investments, companies in Taiwan’s logistics industry must evaluate the factors that could affect the adoption of RFID prior to its introduction. This research employed encoding and utilized a questionnaire survey with the aim of assessing the factors that affect the adoption of this technology within the industry. Based on the results of discriminant analysis and verification, this investigation found that competition in the marketplace, pressure of transaction partners, suppliers’ industry environment, cost, integration of supply chain strategy, complexity of RFID, and mutual standard were among the critical factors. This research anticipates these factors as crucial and beneficial for the initial introduction phase of RFID adoption.

Investigating primary health care nurses' intention to use information technology: An empirical study in Taiwan

Information technology (IT) has become a significant part of providing consistent care quality. The applications of the primary health information system (PHIS) in primary health care have rapidly influenced the care service delivery. Improved understanding of critical antecedents leading the PHIS usage can serve as a foundation for practice to develop implementation strategies and enhance system use for nurses. In accordance with the theory of reasoned action (TRA), this study aims to investigate the antecedents that influence nurses to use the PHIS, and to incorporate a framework of technology acceptance by individual professionals to improve the IT attitude in the health care setting. A total of 768 valid questionnaires were completed by primary health care nurses. The results indicated that compatibility has a positive influence on the perceived usefulness and perceived trust in the PHIS. If primary health care nurses perceive the PHIS to be trustworthy then they are more likely to consider it to be useful. In addition, when the PHIS is seen as both trustworthy and useful, then nurses are more likely to have a positive attitude toward using it. These findings have valuable implications for technology management practice in promoting PHIS usage by primary health care nurses.

Moving hospitals toward e‐learning adoption: an empirical investigation

Purpose – Medical errors cause a significant number of deaths. Providing training to medical staff can improve the quality of medical care. Hospitals have traditionally used face‐to‐face modality to train staff but they are beginning to adopt e‐learning systems that can easily deliver training at work or to other convenient locations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors leading to e‐learning adoption in hospitals.Design/methodology/approach – A framework of factors leading to the adoption decision of e‐learning systems is first proposed. Survey data are collected to empirically test the proposed framework. The samples consist of senior executives and managers in hospitals.Findings – It is found that three factors including managerial, organizational, and technological exhibit significant influences on the adoption decision. One novel result is that the organizational variable of hospital specialization significantly influences the decision to adopt e‐learning systems.Research limitations/i...