Mobile Services and Applications: Towards a Balanced Adoption Model

This paper synthesizes prior research to develop a novel model for the study of the adoption of mobile business services and applications incorporating a demand and supply perspective. The model complements and extends existing models while also leveraging data from industry reports; in particular, it focuses on the interrelationships between participants in the mobile services value chain and the impact of these interrelationships on the adoption of new services in a competitive and technology-saturated service market. There has been to date limited research reported that has considered the dynamics of the interrelationships between customers and (layers of) multiple service providers as a factor in the adoption and acceptance process; the proposed model addresses this gap and advocates the use of a combination of design science and service science methodologies. It is concluded that not mobility per se but the way mobility is used to create value plays a significant role as an adoption driver, and that the quality of the service and its relevance to personal or business lifestyle are the most important decision making factors. It is also asserted that while innovative mobile services (i.e., services that are not already offered using a different technology) may be compelling if they meet lifestyle needs, mobile services replacing or complementing existing ones will be favored by customers only if their quality is exceptional and motivates 'switching' to the mobile service.