An investigation about the small business adoption of mobile commerce

摘要

Mobile technology has been one of the most pervasive information technology trends in the past 20 years. From 2012 to 2017, experts project that global mobile data traffic will reach an estimated 11 exabytes per month. Mobile shopping, also known as mobile commerce (m-commerce), has been on the rise as another avenue for consumers to use. Certain organizations, especially small businesses, have been slower to embrace mobile commerce than individual consumers. The general business problem is that many small businesses have not adopted mobile strategies that will meet consumer expectations for mobile commerce. The specific business problem is that no specific data explains the extent to which performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence may influence small businesses' intention to adopt mobile commerce. The purpose of this correlational study, based on quantitative, non-experimental research, was to examine the factors of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence that may affect the small businesses' intention to adopt mobile commerce. The research focused on small businesses in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. This study is motivated by six research questions: (1) To what extent is there a relationship between performance expectancy and the intent to adopt mobile commerce? (2) To what extent is there a relationship between effort expectancy and the intent to adopt mobile commerce? (3) To what extent is there a relationship between social influence and the intent to adopt mobile commerce? (4) To what extent does performance expectancy influence the small business decision maker's intent to adopt mobile commerce? (5) To what extent does effort expectancy influence the intent to adopt mobile commerce? (6) To what extent does social influence influence the intent to adopt mobile commerce? This study used the Unified Theory of the Adoption and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as a framework to investigate these questions. A random sampling technique was used to collect online survey responses from small businesses (n = 124). Pearson Correlation found significant positive relationships between performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence and the intention to adopt mobile commerce into small business operations. Multiple Linear Regression found only performance expectancy and social influence to have a significant effect on the intention to adopt mobile commerce. Additional investigation discovered that the small businesses' customer type was a moderating factor that changed the outcome of results. This supplemental analysis revealed effort expectancy to have a significant effect on the intention to adopt mobile commerce.