Assessing the moderating effect of gender differences and individualism-collectivism at individual-level on the adoption of mobile commerce technology: TAM3 perspective

Highlights

• This study investigates the moderating effects of individualism-collectivism at individual-level and gender differences on the adoption of mobile commerce in Jordan.

• The study develops a theoretical framework based on the technology acceptance model 3 (TAM3).

• Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are important factors in predicting adoption.

• Self-efficacy, perceptions of external control, image and output quality are important determinants in predicting perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use.

• Individualism-collectivism at individual-level, unlike gender, moderates the adoption of mobile commerce.

Abstract

This study investigates the adoption of mobile commerce in Jordan. Based on TAM3 theory, the study proposes a theoretical framework, and then examines its perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use to explain the individual’s adoption intentions toward mobile commerce. This study also investigates the moderation role of gender difference and individualism-collectivism measured at individual-level on the adoption of mobile commerce. Data were collected from a 14 private Jordanian universities using a paper-based questionnaire. The analysis involves 425 valid data sets. The empirical findings conclude that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are important factors in explaining the individual’s intention to adopt mobile commerce. The findings also demonstrate the impact of self-efficacy and perceptions of external control determinants on the perceptions of ease of use and the impact of image and output quality determinants on the perceptions of usefulness. The results reveal that the moderation role of individualism-collectivism at individual-level values on the adoption of mobile commerce is significant. But the gender does not have any moderation effect on the adoption process. This model explained 41% of the variance in intention to adopt mobile commerce. Implications and recommendations for research and practice are presented and discussed.

Introduction

The information and communication technology (ICT) phenomenon provides sophisticated applications that span the globe, allowing people to dynamically interact over distances to achieve common objectives. Indeed, the convergence of ICT technologies and relevant technological innovations are expected to bring in dramatic changes to our lives. This convergence has led to the development of a new paradigm, called mobile computing. The rapid proliferation of mobile computing technology today has been attributed to the very fact that a wide variety of companies are increasingly capitalizing on this new innovative business channel, motivated by its unique characteristics of mobility and broad reach which break the barriers of geography and time. Without a doubt, mobile computing phenomenon has dramatically transformed the way we interact with our environment.

Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is an emerging discipline involving the use of mobile computing technologies. Due to its many appealing and unique characteristics m-commerce has attracted massive traffic. As a result, business environments have been motivated by this new paradigm in order to achieve more efficient and effective ways of doing business. A plethora of definitions exist for m-commerce concept, many researchers viewing it as the next generation e-commerce (Liang et al., 2007). But according to Tiwari and Buse (2007), m-commerce has been defined as any transaction involving the transfer of ownership or rights to use goods and services, which is initiated and/or completed by using mobile access to computer-mediated networks with the help of an electronic device. M-commerce offers extra functionality to existing e-commerce such as location and localization services (Junglas and Watson, 2008). According to ABI Research, the m-commerce will grow into a $119 billion global industry by 2015, up from $18.3 billion in 2008 (Khalifa et al., 2012). Also, the increase in m-commerce is fueled by a steady stream of new mobile smart devices.

This empirical research study aims at achieving several objectives. First, this empirical research is intended to investigate the dynamics of m-commerce by attempting to understand the important factors accountable for the successful adoption of this technology. This type of analysis is rare since it is implemented in an Arab country, specified with unique context, values and culture. In fact, there is paucity of research investigating the adoption of m-commerce in Jordan in particular and in the Arab world in general. However, the Arab world appears to be lagging behind in the adoption of m-commerce due to different reasons and variety of barriers. More importantly, the Arab world is considered one of the fastest growing regions worldwide in terms of mobile phone penetration and usage (Deloitte. Arab States Mobile Observatory, 2013). Therefore, the need for understanding the reasons for this slow adoption is imperative. Indeed, this study addresses a knowledge gap in the field of this study, particularly in developing countries context like Jordan. Overall, this study contributes largely to fill this knowledge gap.

Second, a review of literature on m-commerce adoption-related studies clearly revealed that the recent researches have predominantly depended on classical TAM model as a theoretical framework, with some extensions to its basic structure (Deng et al., 2010, Hung et al., 2010, Yang, 2010, Jiang and Deng, 2011, Phan and Daim, 2011, Chong et al., 2012, Zarmpou et al., 2012, Zhang et al., 2012, Chong, 2013, Lai and Lai, 2013). However, according to many prominent researchers TAM has its own limitations (Clemes et al., 2014). Therefore, the current study has adopted the TAM3 theory as a theoretical framework. TAM3 model covers many important aspects that play a prospective role in the adoption process of a new technology such as m-commerce. More interestingly, TAM3 model places a heavy emphasis on involving an array of core issues (such as individual differences, system characteristics, social influence and facilitating conditions) that may facilitate understanding the factors influencing the individual-level adoption behavior of m-commerce. To date, rather limited attention has been paid to utilize TAM3 theory in adoption studies related to different contexts of technologies. In fact, this is one of few studies that applies TAM3 model in a mobile-based environment. Definitely, this adds to the body of knowledge an empirically-based comprehensive study that helps pinpoint the critical factors that have the most prominent influence on the adoption process of m-commerce technology carried out within the context and environment of a developing country.

Third, the importance of gender perspectives in the adoption of different technology domains is to some degree overlooked in developing countries. Meanwhile, the impact of gender differences on adoption processes of technologies has been recognized as an important factor, and it has been embraced by academics and practitioners alike. Many studies have reported that gender has an influencing role on consumers’ perceptions toward adoption of information technology (Venkatesh and Morris, 2000, Venkatesh et al., 2003, Venkatesh and Bala, 2008, Wang et al., 2009, Zhang, 2009, Riquelme and Rios, 2010, Dong and Zhang, 2011). On the other hand, literature has emerged that offers contradictory findings about the role of gender on the adoption process of various information technology domains (Bigne et al., 2005, Serenko et al., 2006, Zhou et al., 2007, Lip-Sam and Hock-Eam, 2011). In the meantime, globally little research has been conducted to effectively gauge the impact of gender differences on the adoption of mobile-based technologies in general and m-commerce in particular. However, given the paucity of research in this field of study as well as the inconsistency nature of the findings reported strongly reinforce the importance for further research to improve the understanding of the impact of gender on the adoption of m-commerce, and particularly in developing country context. Consequently, this study contributes toward a greater understanding of how men and women perceive m-commerce adoption in a developing country context because the literature is unexpectedly lacking this important knowledge, which is fundamental for marketers to consider for marketing strategies. Definitely, this is an important contribution by itself because demographic gender has not been given its due importance in the literature, particularly with respect to the research studies related to the adoption of mobile-based technologies, such as m-commerce conducted in a developing country context.

Finally, individualism-collectivism values at individual-level have been extensively researched at both national-level and individual-level in the adoption of varying types of information technologies and reported to play an important role in their adoption process (Erumban and De Jong, 2006, Sun and Zhang, 2006, Lee et al., 2007, Sánchez-Franco et al., 2009, Van Slyke et al., 2010), such role could be either an inhibitor or a facilitator. The reported impact of IC values on individuals’ adoption behavior emerge significantly in the literature possibly because of its large influence on social behavior of consumers (Triandis, 1995). However, some studies have already drawn attention that IC values could have little influence on the adoption of IT (Yoon, 2009, Al-Smadi, 2012). In fact, most empirical studies that have attempted to capture the impact of IC values on the adoption processes of many information technologies have been conducted in the western cultures, where cultural values are different from those of eastern cultures. In fact, far too little attention has been paid to investigate the moderating influence of IC values at the individual-level on the adoption of m-commerce in the developing cultures. In the light of the arguments presented here, there is an imperative need for more research to better appreciate the moderating impact of IC values on m-commerce adoption in a context of developing country. Apparently, this study contributes significantly to expand our knowledge on how cultural values at individual-level can influence individuals’ perceptions and behaviors toward adoption of m-commerce in the context of a developing country. Evidently, this study fills a knowledge gap in the existing literature.

This study acknowledges that mobile-based commerce is an emerging paradigm that is now viewed as a potential technology which is already providing novel perspectives to world of business. Further, the current study believes that understanding the nature of m-commerce adoption processes in a developing context like Jordan can inform marketing strategy development, suggesting recommendations and ways on how to attract customers to adopt and use the m-commerce technology. Still, in order to eliminate as much as possible the barriers that impede and challenge the m-commerce adoption and effectively drive consumers to use this technology, and further improve the possibility of proliferation of m-commerce in Jordan. There exists a growing need for more substantive, empirically-based research in order to better understand the main drivers influencing consumers’ behavior toward m-commerce adoption. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the theoretical background of the model. A description of the research model and hypotheses is presented in Section 3. Analytical results are reported in Section 4. Section 5 provides the discussion of findings, contributions, implications, conclusions and future studies.