Raffaele Filieri, Wenshin Chen and Bidit Lal Dey
China is the world’s largest consumer market for smartphones. Early adopters are highly influential in consumers’ decisions of new technologies. Therefore, understanding Chinese…
Abstract
Purpose
China is the world’s largest consumer market for smartphones. Early adopters are highly influential in consumers’ decisions of new technologies. Therefore, understanding Chinese early adopters’ decision making in the smartphone market is of crucial importance to smartphone companies. There is a dearth of in-depth studies on the factors affecting consumers’ repurchase intention for smartphones. The purpose of this paper is to narrow this knowledge gap by developing a new conceptual framework explaining early adopters’ repurchase intention of smartphones.
Design/methodology/approach
Using 30 face-to-face interviews with Chinese early adopters of smartphones, the authors built a new theoretical framework to explain the factors that influence their repurchase intention.
Findings
Repurchase intention of smartphones is determined by aesthetic and utilitarian product-related factors (design appeal, perceived usefulness), socio-cultural factors (subjective norms, mianzi/face considerations), and brand-related factors (brand popularity, brand’s country of origin, perceived brand quality, and brand loyalty). The emerging framework also explores the factors affecting enhancing, maintaining, and saving mianzi/face.
Originality/value
In contrast to existing technology-driven models, the study’s emerging framework shows how aesthetic, socio-cultural, and brand-related factors can offer new insights in understanding repurchase intention in a rapidly developing market. As these factors are rarely examined in the information technology and/or marketing literatures, potential knowledge contribution can be highly expected.
Details
Keywords
This study seeks to explore digital natives' mobile usage behaviors and, in turn, develop an analytic framework that helps articulate the underlying components of mobile addiction…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to explore digital natives' mobile usage behaviors and, in turn, develop an analytic framework that helps articulate the underlying components of mobile addiction syndrome (MAS), its severity levels and mobile usage purposes.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation adopts a survey method and a case study. The results of the former are based on 411 random classroom observations and 205 questionnaire responses, and the insights of the latter are derived from 24 interviews and daily observations.
Findings
The findings validate five distinctive signs that constitute MAS and their significant correlations with each of the Big Five personality traits. Classroom observations confirm the prevalence of addiction tendency among digital natives in the research context. Seven levels of MAS and six different mobile usage purposes further manifest themselves from case analysis. There appears to be a sharp contrast between the addicted and non-addicted groups in their mobile purposes and behavioral patterns. Additionally, family relationships seem influential in shaping non-addictive mobile usage behaviors.
Research limitations/implications
Psychological perspectives on MAS may be important but insufficient. Empirical investigation on a global scale, especially with distinctive cross-cultural comparisons, will be highly encouraged. How MAS evolves over time should also serve as future research interests.
Practical implications
Teaching pedagogy of college education might need certain adjustments to intrigue digital natives' learning interests. Future managers might also need to adopt better performance measurements for digital natives who barely separate work from personal matters in their mobile devices.
Social implications
Parents and healthcare institutions may need to develop response mechanism to tackle this global issue at home and in society. The long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on MAS might also deserve global attention.
Originality/value
The analytic framework developed provides an original mechanism that can be valuable in identifying MAS severity and associated behavioral patterns.