The rise of mobile internet: the adoption process at the bottom of the pyramid

Date10 September 2018
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/DPRG-05-2018-0024
Pages582-599
Published date10 September 2018
AuthorMuhammad Sabbir Rahman,Mahafuz Mannan,Riasat Amir
Subject MatterInformation & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information policy
The rise of mobile internet: the adoption
process at the bottom of the pyramid
Muhammad Sabbir Rahman, Mahafuz Mannan and Riasat Amir
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this studyis to provide an insight into the adoption process of mobileinternet
(M-internet)among bottom-of-the-pyramid(BoP) customers.
Design/methodology/approach An empiricalsurvey was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Data
were collected from a total of 387 BoP customers from Bangladesh. PLS-SEM was applied to test the
proposedmodel.
Findings The findings in this study reveal that BoP customers’ life satisfaction, internet literacy,
perceived usefulnessand perceived ease of use significantly influencea customer’s intention to use M-
internet, while these relationships are partially mediated by the attitudetoward M-internet. Furthermore,
price perception was found to directly influence intention to use M-internet and to have a positive
moderating effecton the relationship between attitude toward M-internet and intentionto use M-internet.
Also, intention to use M-internetwas found to have a significant influence on BoP customer’sM-internet
adoptionbehavior.
Practical implications The findings of this studyhelp to understand what drives and impedes the M-
Internetadoption behavior of BoP customers in a developingcountry like Bangladesh.
Originality/value This is the first study that incorporated BoP customers’ life satisfaction and internet
literacy to investigate the BoP customers’ adoption process of M-internet in the context of developing
countries. Overall,this study contributes to the limited literatureregarding the BoP customers’ M-internet
adoption behavior.The results of this study will help the M-internet service providers of Bangladeshand
other similar developing countries to understand the BoP customer’s adoption process regarding M-
internetto create successful policies and strategiesboth for the service providersand policymakers.
Keywords Behavior, Bangladesh, Intention, Price, Life satisfaction, Attitude, Mobile internet,
Bottom of pyramid, Internet literacy
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Consumers’ adoption behavior toward a particular object has always been a prevalent
marketing topic, extensively explored and studied over the last decades such as most of
contemporary marketing-related textbook cannot be c ompleted without a chapter dedicated
to this scope (Constantinides, 2004;Chen and Barnes, 2007;Jenyo Gabriel and Soyoye
Kolapo, 2015;Mahapatra and Sreekumar, 2012). The core appr oach in explaining the
principal of consumer behavior is the consumer overall buying process, which comprised of
learning, information processing and decision-making activity (Brassington and Pettitt, 2003;
Dibb et al.,2005;Kotler, 2003;Mullins et al., 2012). However, academicians and practitioners
agree that a consumer’s demographic profile, social status, economic condition, cultural
diversity, psychological aspects, personal factors and various environmental factors influence
consumers’ adoption behavior and purchasing decisions (Czinkot a and Kotabe, 2001;
Mullins et al., 2012;Solomon, 2009). As the world is moving forward in the twenty-first century,
it seems that the accomplishments of the present century are heavily dependent on the
incredible phenomenon known as the internet (Perry et al., 1998). A larger number of bottom-
Muhammad Sabbir
Rahman is Associate
Professor at the
Department of Marketing
and International Business,
North South University,
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Mahafuz Mannan and
Riasat Amir are both
Lecturers at the
Department of Marketing
and International Business,
North South University,
Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Received 16 May 2018
Revised 24 June 2018
Accepted 7 July 2018
PAGE 582 jDIGITAL POLICY, REGULATION AND GOVERNANCE jVOL. 20 NO. 6 2018, pp. 582-599, ©EmeraldPublishing Limited, ISSN 2398-5038 DOI 10.1108/DPRG-05-2018-0024
of-pyramid (BoP) customer segments have contributed to the growth of the use of internet
(Subrahmanyan and Tomas Gomez-Arias, 2008), as more and more segments of th e BoP
customers are rushing to become wired through the internet. Particularly, the number of
mobile internet (M-internet) users among the BoP customer s is increasing at a rapid pace.
Moreover, a significant number of BoP markets in develo ping countries have adopted M-
internet because of the enormous opportunity and facilities M-internet provides for the BoP
customers (Akter et al.,2013;Stork et al., 2013). Thus, the success of the M-internet business
among the BoP customers of developing countries is dependent on understanding the
process of adoption of M-internet among them. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the
adoption process of M-internet among the BoP customers of developing countries taking
Bangladesh as a unit of analysis.
In the context of M-internet service providers, it is very difficult to make reasonable profit
from the BoP segment without rigorous understanding of the key antecedents of their M-
internet adoption behavior. Therefore, development of a conceptual understanding of the
adoption process of M-internet of the BoP customer segments of developing countries is
required to succeed in the markets because of their unique demographic profile, social
status, economic condition, cultural diversity, psychological aspects and personal factors.
Thus, the objective of this study is to identify the key component of the M-internet adoption
process of the BoP customers of the developing countries. For that purpose, this study
used and modified the technology acceptance model (TAM) to conceptualize the adoption
process of M-internet among the BoP customers of developing nations through extensive
literature review and with the help of an expert panel consisting of academicians and
industry experts. TAM is often considered as the main research avenue of discovering the
antecedents of the behavior of accepting and using information systems (Davis, 1989;Hsu
and Lu, 2004;Koufaris, 2002;van der Heijden, 2004). In the basic TAM, perceived ease of
use and perceived usefulnessare addressed as the most important constructs in predicting
information system acceptance. Many previous studies have investigated the role of
perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness to construct in predicting information
systems acceptance by the customers (Legris et al.,2003;Martins et al.,2014;Tarhini
et al., 2015;Venkatesh and Davis, 1996). However, depending on the specific technology
and market context, many studies have incorporated additional constructs along with
perceived ease of use and usefulness were used in this research regarding behavioral
intention (Aggelidis and Chatzoglou,2009;Lu et al., 2003;Rauniar et al.,2014;Shin, 2009).
Furthermore, apart from TAM, a wide variety of TAMs are present in the existing literature,
signifying the importance of the technology adoption process (Taherdoost, 2018). For
example, an extensive study was conducted by Venkatesh et al. (2012), where they
modified the UTAUT (unified theory of acceptance and use of technology) model
specifically for consumers’ context. Their work demonstrated that hedonic motivation is a
vital construct for an individual’s behavioral intention. Furthermore, their research also
revealed that individual characteristics such as gender, age and experience moderate the
relationship between hedonic motivation and behavioral intention (Venkatesh et al.,2012).
Also, they included price value in the original UTAUT model. Nevertheless, this study
incorporates the constructs life satisfaction and internet literacy for the first time to
conceptualize the M-internet service adoption process of BoP customers of developing
countries, where this research will contribute. Furthermore, there is scarcity in existing
literature regarding BoP customers’ M-internet adoption process in the context of
developing countries. Thisstudy aims to contribute in that regard.
Therefore, this study focuses on BoP customers’ life satisfaction, understanding of various
applications of using M-internet, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in
formation of attitude and intention, ultimately influencing their behavior in adopting M-
internet in practice. In addition, the price or the concern of affordability to access the M-
internet has also been accounted for in the dynamics. Thus, this study will not only provide
useful outcomes to the M-internet service providers, but also assist other concerning
VOL. 20 NO. 6 2018 jDIGITALPOLICY, REGULATION AND GOVERNANCE jPAGE 583

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