What Roles do Perceived Values and Motivations Play in M-Commerce Usage across National Contexts: An Abstract

Abstract

For multinational mobile retailers, one of the greatest challenges lies in carefully managing their websites across multiple national markets, which often vary in their stage of readiness and motivation for m-commerce usage. However, catering to the unique preferences of customers in different markets generally proves challenging for firms (Morgeson et al. 2015), resulting in m-retailers often offering standardized online platforms across these markets. Such cross-national standardization allows m-retailers to lower costs and easily manage their websites (Batra et al. 2017; Katsikeas et al. 2006). However, it can also reduce local market relevance by creating a misfit between shopping experience offered and what consumers want (Torelli et al. 2012). This is may be a possible cause for the relatively low mobile conversion rates of 1.4%, compared to 4.1% for desktop shoppers, and could explain why consumers may still be reluctant to use m-commerce across different countries (Xu et al. 2017). Against this backdrop, the present study contributes to this rich field of study by adding insights on what could directly influence adaptation/standardization decisions regarding m-commerce, which is an increasingly important retail channel for international marketers. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to contribute to decisions to standardize/adapt m-commerce solutions based on consumers’ m-commerce readiness and their motivations behind using m-commerce. This research posits that the way consumers’ motivations (hedonic vs utilitarian) influence their behavior (intention and habit), and in turn how behavior affects m-commerce usage, will be moderated by technology readiness. Unlike past cross-national studies exploring m-commerce through the lens of cultural differences, we argue that that the differences in the m-commerce readiness stage among countries may provide a more nuanced understanding of consumers’ behavioral differences when studying a new technology, like m-commerce. Our work contributes to the m-retailing literature because it is among the first that examines the competing roles of hedonic and utilitarian motivations on the one hand, and intention and habit on the other, by leveraging the data collected across various countries that are at different m-commerce readiness stages. Our work has critical implication for m-retailers who operate globally. Given that large multinational corporations, such as Starbucks, Amazon and Alibaba, are becoming more dependent on foreign markets for their revenue and profitability, our findings can provide a rich understanding that can help m-retailers leverage the performance of their m-commerce initiatives and campaigns across diverse international markets.