CCE Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems (DISS)

Department

Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences

Advisor

Marlyn K. Littman

Committee Member

Amon B. Seagull

Committee Member

Ling Wang

Keywords

Mobile Devices, Professional Service Firms, Smartphones, Technology Adoption

Abstract

The evolution and proliferation of mobile devices (m-devices) in the workplace have been rapid. In comparison to conventional services provided by mobile phones (m-phones), smartphones feature sophisticated functionality, such as Internet access, video/audio streaming, and business productivity applications. As a consequence of increased demand for smartphones in the workplace, an understanding of the factors that determine the decision to adopt smartphones in business settings is necessary. The goal of this investigation was to identify the key factors that have an impact on the adoption of smartphones.

This dissertation investigation provided an understanding of the key factors that affect the adoption of smartphones for the domain of professional consultants and validated the key constructs of a conceptual map of smartphone adoption through the analysis of data generated from a survey of professional consultants from a global professional services firm, ZS Associates. A total of 130 valid responses from an online survey distributed to 336 ZS Associates professional consultants located in North America, European Union, Japan, China, and India were used in this study.

The results of this investigation indicated that social influence, perceived ease of use (PEU), perceived usefulness (PU)/compatibility in the workplace, job relevance, and technology are the key factors that affect the adoption of a smartphone. Demographics and observability factors such as age and observing others' using smartphones in the workplace were found to have no significant impact on smartphone adoption. The outcomes of this investigation indicated that there were no significant cultural differences between respondents in the North America, EU, and Asia-Pacific regions in regard to the adoption of a smartphone.

The results of this investigation expanded the research on the adoption of smartphones to the domain of professional consultants. The investigation expanded the research of smartphone adoption from a cultural perspective. Further, the research bridged the gap in the information technology (IT) literature on the intention to use a smartphone by incorporating the key constructs from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technologies (UTAUT), and the Diffusion of Innovations Theory (DOI) models.

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