This study examined acceptance decision factors of a smart phone, which is a representative convergent media in the IT area, and suggested a smart phone acceptance model to analyze the cause and effect relations of concepts. While the use of the new m...
This study examined acceptance decision factors of a smart phone, which is a representative convergent media in the IT area, and suggested a smart phone acceptance model to analyze the cause and effect relations of concepts. While the use of the new media, a smart phone, is rapidly increasing around the world, there are few scholarly researches on it. Therefore, the systematic examination and analysis of the smart phone acceptance model in this study can be considered a timely and appropriate subject. The smart phone acceptance model was developed based on the TAM(Technology Acceptance Model) of Fred Davis(1989) by expanding constructs of the model. It suggested new external variables which were not considered in other previous researches and it is advantageous in that more specific and systematic analysis can be done using this model. In this study, two research problems and research models were suggested and a positive research was conducted. The first research model added perceived playfulness to the basic TAM and the second one added perceived playfulness and several external factors to the basic TAM. In other words, the first research model was expanded with the addition of personal innovativeness, social influence, user interface and cost factors.
The result of analysis can be concluded as followings. The first research model showed that a user attitude toward use appeared more positive when the user perceived the usefulness, ease-of-use, playfulness more highly after the user had used a smart phone. The user also perceived more highly the usefulness and playfulness of a smart phone when the user thought that he/she used it more easily. In the second research model, the result showed that the higher the personal innovativeness, social influence and user interface influence were, the higher the perceived usefulness, ease-of-use and playfulness of the user were, which appeared to form a positive attitude toward use of a smart phone. It was also shown that a more positive attitude toward use leads to more positive intention toward use of a smart phone. However, the influence of cost was not verified in this model.
Based on these results, this study presents several implications on the acceptance of a smart phone. First, whenever a new media appears, the diffusion of innovation is discussed. The respondents of this survey can be said as early adopters based on the results of demographic characteristics. That seems the reason why personal innovativeness was high in this study.
Second, the issue of cost can be raised in smart phone acceptance. The influence of cost was not verified in this study because early adopters generally do not much care about the prices of innovative products in the introductory stage of a new media. However, cost can be an important variable considering the diffusion process with increasing adopter groups and decreasing prices in the future.
Third, people communications are facilitated more closely due to rapidly growing social networks. People want to maintain instant and lasting relationships with people around them. In this sense, the social influence of a new media is more emphasized. That can also be understood as a desire to show off or distinguish themselves from others.
Fourth, considering that a smart phone is an individual-centric convergent media, it can be emphasized that users look at subjective aspects as well as functional aspects of the media when they accept a smart phone. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to user interface which was confirmed to have a highest influence. Recently graphic user interface has been a subject of many researches. As the example of Apple that preoccupied the market with intuitive interface and applications shows, successful attraction of consumers requires enhancement of user interface.
Lastly, the smart phone acceptance model, suggested in this study based on the concepts mentioned above, was confirmed to be very effective in predicting consumer acceptance. It is also meaningful in that it can be immediately applied in actual marketing work. The smart phone acceptance model can be used as a market analysis tool to provide useful insights about smart phone users in the future. It can also provide a practical help in developing design and marketing strategies to hold a dominant position in the market. The smart phone acceptance model here can be used as an effective tool in actual working areas as well as in academic researches on the adoption and usage of an IT media in the future.
However, there is a limit to giving a comprehensive explanation about smart phone acceptance only by using the results suggested in this study because there can be other factors which can actually have influence in smart phone acceptance than those mentioned here. Therefore, there is a need to discuss the validity of the concepts although the smart phone acceptance model showed a valid result in this study. There should also be more researches on smart phone acceptance with multiple approaches.