Background: In mobile phone industry, Smartphones are gaining popularity as an effective communication tool, providing users with “Smart” functionalities of both cell-phone and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). Experts in mobile industry expect that smartphones are going to be dominant in mobile phone market. However, Smartphone industry is facing a different reality, with its declining sales and less market share, forcing research companies (Gartner, Canalys, etc.) to change their expectations. This situation leads us to another important and often ignored perspective of innovation challenges, i.e. consumers' resistance; as consumers' adoption and purchase decision makes a significant difference in the success of innovative products. Problem: Innovation has been called as a key factor for companies to survive and grow in the long run, especially in the dynamic & complex markets and uncertain economic circumstances. Despite the successful outcome of innovations, inhibition or delay in the diffusion of innovation may translate this success into market failure, where resistance has been called as one of the main reasons for inhibiting or delaying the innovation diffusion. Consumers adoption of innovation depend upon several factors: the most important of which are specified as consumers’ characteristics (psychological characteristics of consumers; how they view the innovativeness with respect to that particular product), and the innovation characteristics (outcome and effects of innovation). Past research on innovation & consumers characteristics represents good relationship among the innovation/consumers factors and the adoption/implementation of that innovation by consumers. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the relationship between consumers' resistance and different factors from innovation and consumers' characteristics. Thereafter, important factors are identified that mainly affect/determine consumers' resistance to smartphones. Moreover, the inter-relationship (correlation) among the selected factors is found out, to know the affects of each factor on other factors. Method: Following abductive approach, confirmatory factor analysis has been done on pre-test questionnaires to test, improve, and verify the constructs (variables/questions) for measuring the hypothesized factors. A theoretical model has been proposed from the hypotheses; and Structural Equation Modeling has been applied, where results are estimated through Partial Least Square and AMOS approaches, using a sample of 330 respondents from Sweden. SmartPLS software has been used to estimate results, thereafter, AMOS has been used to check and verify the results. Almost same results have been derived from both approaches, while results from PLS are found as more satisfactory. Conclusions: Five out of eight hypotheses have been supported by our empirical data, where H1 i.e. relative advantage, H3 i.e. complexity, and H4 i.e. perceived risk, are from innovation characteristics, while H6 i.e. motivation, and H7 i.e. „favorable attitude towards existing products‟ are from consumers' characteristics. Motivation, Complexity, Relative Advantage, and Perceived Risk are found as important factors (as per their order) that affect/determine consumers' resistance to smartphones. Relative Advantage & Motivation are found as positively correlated, and Perceived Risk & Complexity are found as positively correlated. Negative correlation has been found between Perceived Risk and relative advantage. Similarly, negative correlation has been found between motivation and complexity. The proposed model of consumers resistance to smartphones shows an acceptable goodness of fit, where 65% (R-square value) of variation in consumers resistance is caused/explained by the hypothesized factors. / The Presentation (Defense) has been attended by Cecilia Bjursel instead of our supervisor Desalegn Abraha.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hj-9490 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Khan, Kamran, Hyunwoo, Kim |
| Publisher | Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, EMM (Entreprenörskap, Marknadsföring, Management), Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, EMM (Entreprenörskap, Marknadsföring, Management) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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