The impact of technological-organizational-environmental (TOE) factors on firm performance: merchant’s perspective of mobile payment from Thailand’s retail and service firms
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-01-2020-0012 |
| Pages | 359-383 |
| Date | 16 November 2020 |
| Published date | 16 November 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Strategy,International business |
| Author | Thipa Mahakittikun,Sid Suntrayuth,Veera Bhatiasevi |
The impact of technological-
organizational-environmental (TOE)
factors on firm performance: merchant’s
perspective of mobile payment from
Thailand’s retail and service firms
Thipa Mahakittikun, Sid Suntrayuth and Veera Bhatiasevi
Abstract
Purpose –This studyaims to identify the impact of mobile paymenton firm performance by developing a
model based on the technology, organization and environment framework (TOE framework) including
relative advantage,complexity, compatibility, innovativeness,mobile payment knowledge, criticalmass,
competitivepressure and external support.
Design/methodology/approach –The data werecollected from the retail and service firmsin Bangkok,
Thailand (n= 387). Multipleregression analysis was applied to test the proposed model and carried out
in SPSS version25.
Findings –The results indicated that the TOE factors, including relative advantage, innovativeness,
mobile paymentknowledge, critical mass, competitive pressuresand external supports, can predict firm
performance. While innovativeness is the strongest predictor of positive firmperformance, on the other
hand, criticalmass is found to be negatively significanton firm performance.
Practical implications –This research suggeststhat firms that accept mobile payment can identifythe
positive impact on firm performance and it is important for payment service providers and the
governmentto work closely with firms.
Originality/value –As some merchants still refuse to implement mobile payment services in their
business, this current study seeks to understand the impact of mobile payment. However, not many
studies are reported its impact in SoutheastAsia. This study is probably the first in Thailand to examine
the impactof mobile payment on firm performancein the retail and service firms.
Keywords Thailand, Firm performance, Mobile payment, TOE framework, Merchant,
Retail and service firms, Impact
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
As commerce has shifted to digital platforms, it is undeniable that firms must adopt the
appropriate technology to transform the way they traditionally worked. Such
implementations are believed not only to provide better benefits, including better business
practices, profitability and efficiency of business (Shin, 1999) but also greater productivity
and sales growth rate (Abebe, 2014;Liang et al., 2007) along with enhancements in
satisfaction among customers and in decision-making (Varshney and Vetter, 2002). Today,
firms are likely to adopt innovations such as websites, mobile applications and digital
payment methods (Morgan, 2019). Such adoption allows firms to reach their specific target
Thipa Mahakittikun and
Sid Suntrayuth are both
based at International
College, National Institute
of Development
Administration, Bangkok,
Thailand.
Veera Bhatiasevi is based
at Mahidol University
International College,
Salaya, Thailand.
Received 13 January 2020
Revised 28 May 2020
5 September 2020
Accepted 2 October 2020
DOI 10.1108/JABS-01-2020-0012 VOL. 15 NO. 2 2021, pp. 359-383, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1558-7894 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jPAGE 359
customers via advertising platforms on social media or search engines, easily sell their
products via online commerce platforms, integrate their orders with logistics companies
and conveniently accept digital payment transactions via mobile devices(mobile payment).
Mobile payment also referred to as m-paymentor m-wallet, is a digital payment method that
uses the technology on mobile devices for processing a payment transaction (Crowe et al.,
2010;Kim et al., 2010;Raina, 2014).
Mobile payment can be defined as the use of mobile phones for person-to-business
payments (World Bank, 2009) at the point of sale terminal via a QR code, an NFC or an
RFID (Bank of Thailand, 2012). To acceptmobile payment from customers, a firm must own
either a device that can serve as a payment terminal such as a handheld payment terminal
or a mobile phone dongle (Worldpay, 2018) or a mobile wallet application such as Alipay,
WeChat Pay, PayPal or a mobile banking application. Afterit is received from the customer,
the money is deposited to the business’s accountaccording to the settlement process from
the service provider they use.
The adoption of mobile payments has continued to grow each year. PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC) surprisingly reported that in 2019 the number of customers using mobile payment in
physical stores throughout the world had increased from 24% t o 34%. Within Southeast Asia,
Thailand has the second largest mobile payment penetration at 67% (PWC , 2019). Similarly,
Wearesocial (2019) notes that among Thailand’s 57 million Internet users, the percentage of
those who have made an online purchase with a mobile device has increased from 31% in
2016 to 52% in 2017 and to 71% in 2019. This significant gr owth of mobile payment in
Thailand is due to the effort to promote a cashless society by th e Thai Government and with
the support from private sectors to implement Promptpay, which is the government’s initiative
to make transferring funds easier. Furthermore, as Thai banks are a lso going digital, they are
playing a critical role in introducing and promoting the use of Thai QR payment to enab le their
customers to easily transfer funds using mobile banking applicati ons. According to the Bank
of Thailand (2018), over 3 million QR codes have become a vailable in physical stores and
online channels. This has increased the popularity of payment via mobile banking
applications, which has resulted in decreasing the number of bank branches. Non-ban k
players such as the telco and tech companies not only provide mobile wallets but are a lso
seeking more partnerships and expanding their services to i nclude broader lifestyle services
such as those offered by TrueMoney, Rabbit LINE Pay, AirPay wallet, Lazada wallet and
GrabPay. In addition to mobile device operators such as Samsung Pay, Google Pay and
Apple Pay, there are also initiatives from large companies and retailers such as Dolfin wallet,
S&P e-wallets and SCG wallets. Thus, mobile payments in Thaila nd’s physical stores are
mostly initiated from:
䊏mobile banking applications;
䊏mobile wallet applications; and
䊏NFC payment from mobile devices.
Accepting mobile payment can provide a variety of assets for businesses, including better
ways of managing both cash and human resources, in addition to offering greater
satisfaction for customers (First Data, 2011;Gpkretail, 2017). Furthermore, the popularity of
mobile payment can reflect a growing willingness to pay on the part of the customer (Falk
et al.,2016
). It also allows for saving on costs, especially costs related to handling and
consolidating cash, as well as saving on time spent because of more convenient instant
payment options (Lamsam et al., 2018). Although mobile payment has several benefits for
business, it is still perceived as complex due to the fact that several stakeholders are
involved (Antovski and Gusev, 2003;Apanasevic et al.,2016) and that the rate of adoption
by customers and the acceptance by merchants oftentimes diverge (Dennehy and
Sammon, 2015). However, acceptance by consumers and merchants can lead to the
success of mobile payment and mobile commerce (Yang et al.,2012), transforming society
PAGE 360 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jVOL. 15 NO. 2 2021
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