<p> This work is an investigation of user acceptance of a prototype solution utilizing wireless text messaging (or SMS - i.e., short messaging service) to improve people's adherence. Insufficient adherence, also known as medical non-compliance, is a major cause of failure in self-management programs, causing significant losses to all healthcare stakeholders.</p> <p> Innovative mobile healthcare solutions, based on portable devices like cell phones, may address some non-adherence aspects by helping outpatients to follow treatments agreed with their health providers. Although this seems a win-win situation, a verdict on the overall usefulness of such an approach cannot be formulated before exploring outpatient acceptance, as this is a novel technology that targets a new area of implementation. Accordingly, this research investigates key factors that may influence the acceptance of a mobile healthcare solution based on SMS to support improved adherence to healthy behaviour, with special attention to motivation (the 'pro' factors) and perceived risk (the 'con' factors).</p> <p> As a means of investigation, a one-month longitudinal experiment with two groups of subjects (an intervention group and a control group) was utilized. Data were analyzed with quantitative and qualitative techniques: descriptive statistics, partial least squares modelling, and content analysis.</p> <p> Findings show that users are aware of the potential usefulness of such a pioneering application. However, enjoyment is the unique reason for adopting, and perceived financial and psychological risks the main obstacles against adopting, an SMS-based solution for improving adherence to healthy behaviour. Furthermore, a business analysis shows that users are concerned about usefulness features, even when asked about financial aspects.</p> <p> These results, together with encouraging findings about the effectiveness of the application, open the way for medical-led research to investigate if long-term mobile healthcare initiatives customized to patient needs are also beneficial for outpatient adherence and health outcomes.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In the era of e-commerce and m-commerce, money has become bits of data stored on computers and moves around the world as bytes of information on data communication networks. Mobile and wireless is rapidly changing the way personal financial services are designed and delivered. Mobile banking is one of the new access methods for banking services via new delivery channels consisting of the Internet and mobile technologies. Innovative technologies have changed the nature of selling and buying financial services in the new electronic banking paradigm. Customers are increasingly given the option to provide services for themselves via electronic delivery channels. As technology has become increasingly a more vital element of service delivery, managerial interest in understanding the adoption processes, preferences, and needs of different customers have led to calls for more academic research. Due to the newness of the mobile banking services, customer behavior in the mobile banking context has remained a rather uncharted territory. Literature suggests that previous adoption models which view technology use as a behavior completely under volitional control are limited in the sense that they do not specifically address the possibility that people may try to undertake the learning activities and experience the outcomes necessary to use a technology. This study will evaluate a global view of users? acceptance of mobile banking between Asian and Western market to better understand the users? behavioral pattern in different cultural settings. Based on such theoretical underpinnings as The Theory of Trying, UTAUT, Trust, Self-Efficacy and Cross-cultural Dimensions, this research tends to grasp a comprehensive view of mobile banking adoption, based on both perspectives of volitional and non-volitional such as trying. Results of this research may help practitioners of mobile banking services, such as information systems designers and marketing and management executives, to more efficiently design, implement, and promote mobile banking services. Also, identifications of the factors and causal relationships that influence and describe the end user?s adoption toward mobile banking service help focus m-commerce research on questions that significantly impact the development of mobile banking and m-commerce as a whole.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Each year, companies will spend millions of dollars developing or migrating to new software systems in their business processes. Much of the focus of development and implementation has been based upon customer need (i.e., requirements), and rightly so. Equally important to requirements, however, are the users' perceptions of the software. Does a user actually think a piece of software would help them meet the need identified? Does the user think it would be easy for them to implement this software as a solution? What do the people around the user think and how does that opinion affect theirs? It is important to understand what factors determine whether a potential user will adopt a software application and how much they will use it? A commonly used model for explaining this is the Technology Acceptance Model. Davis (1989) found that subjective belief about a software system is most closely related to the actual intention to use it. Specifically, Davis uses Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use in the Technology Acceptance Model to model intention to use a software system statistically. Neither of these subjective views are formed by a potential user in isolation. The opinions and behavior of others can potentially exert a great deal of influence on an individual's perception of these factors. Davis himself points out the omission of social influence in the original Technology Acceptance Model was due to measurement difficulties rather than to its potential value in the model. Difficulty in measuring social influence is evidenced by the lack of a definitive scale of social influence. By its common use in many studies, Subjective Norm has become the "defacto standard" for measuring social influence but this has not resulted in a consistently significant measure of social influence. The goal of this current study is two-fold. The primary goal is to incorporate a validated scale of social influence into the original Technology Acceptance Model which preserves the model's parsimony while significantly increasing its explained variance. Secondarily, in doing so, a modified scale based upon Subjective Norms will be verified and tested. In response to a recognized shortcoming of Subjective Norm, a cognitive element will be included into the modified scale. In this current study the modification of Subjective Norm was developed based upon existing research on the topic. The Technology Acceptance Model is augmented by the proposed scale and tested over four surveys. Two systems are chosen for study because of the nature of their use; use of one (Filebox) is voluntary, and use of the other (Blackboard) is compulsory. The results of the survey were consistent across all four surveys, with the model predicting over 40% of the variation in behavior every time. Including the modified scale of Subjective Norm significantly increased the explained variance of the model (i.e., R2) in every survey. The results verify the reliability and validity of the modified scale of Subjective Norm. These four studies make a strong case for including this scale of social influence as a regular scale in the Technology Acceptance Model for future research. Future directions for studying the scale and the resulting model are also discussed. The resulting behavioral model is a valuable tool that will give software developers and managers more forethought and insight into the development of and migration to specific software systems. / Ph. D.