An organizational perspective on m-business: usage factors and value determination

Reference: Picoto, W.N., Bélanger, F., & Palma-dos-Reis, A. (2014). An organizational perspective on m-business: usage factors and value determination. European Journal of Information Systems, 23(5), 571-592

Summary:

Mobile technologies have become an essential part of individuals’ life, whether at work or in the comfort of their own homes. However, most studies are done to prove how mobile technologies have impacted the lives and changed the way people live and act, studies have ignored the fact that mobile phones have also touched the business and firms themselves, thus this study focuses more on the organizational context and organizational perspective on mobile business and analyses the value m-business can provide for firms.

Year after year, there is an increase in the purchase of smartphones, which means more and more people are connected on mobile services and this can also be seen as opportunities for business and opportunities for new digital marketing strategies, and thus the word “m- business” or mobile business.

What is highlighted in this article is the M-buisness unique value. Going further into detail, the mobile technologies unique features are its portability, its user identification, its localization, and its instant connectivity. Moreover, what the M-business can provide as unique value propositions is its ubiquity; the concept of anywhere, anytime. Also, its personalization, and its convenience. M-business can impact the business on many levels including and not limited to marketing and sales, internal operations, and procurement. In addition to that, with the technology-organization-environment framework or what is referred to in the article as TOE, diffusion of innovation theory and resource based theory as theoretical lenses, a proposed conceptual model is used to assess the post-adoption stages of usage and value of mobile business.

  • On the organizational level, the results provided important information about M-business fundamental values and “five new impacts were identified in the interviews: better information quality, improved employee learning, increased employee effectiveness, innovation incentive, and facilitating inventory management with the use of RFID technology.
  •  On the technological level, the RFID adoption was not surely a relative advantage for a certain company and it also highlighted that each person deals with technology on his or her own personal level. And finally, on the environmental level, “competitive pressure, partner pressure, and mobile environment are significant and positive antecedents of m-buisness usage.