Which platform should I choose? Factors influencing consumers’ channel transfer intention from web-based to mobile library service
| Date | 21 March 2016 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-06-2015-0065 |
| Pages | 2-20 |
| Published date | 21 March 2016 |
| Author | Min Zhang,Xuele Shen,Mingxing Zhu,Jun Yang |
Which platform should I choose?
Factors influencing consumers’
channel transfer intention from
web-based to mobile
library service
Min Zhang, Xuele Shen and Mingxing Zhu
Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and
Jun Yang
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
Abstract
Purpose –With more and more individuals relying on mobile devices to obtain information, many
libraries launch mobile application to satisfy mobile users’information need. The purpose of this paper
is to figure out factors influencing consumers’channel transfer intention of library service from
web-based platform to mobile app.
Design/methodology/approach –A structural equation model is proposed based on categorization
theory. In addition, situational contexts are taken into account to make research model more suitable
for the real condition. Data collected from 319 samples are used for hypotheses examining.
Findings –The relationships between source and target (perceived differentiation including function
differentiation and resource differentiation) positively affect perceived situation efficiency, which in
turn shapes intention to use mobile library application. Perceived mobile library quality positively
influences perceived differentiation, perceived situation efficiency and mobile library adoption
intention. In summary, perceived situation efficiency is the main factor.
Practical implications –Both quality and situational factors should be taken seriously, and mobile
device producers and mobile app developers should cooperate on improving the quality of mobile app.
Meanwhile, it is critical to examine the relationship between web based and mobile library service in
the initial or early stage of mobile library development.
Originality/value –By focussing on the impacts of the relationship between web and mobile library
service and evaluation of mobile library on the adoption intention, this paper not only provides a
theoretical understanding of mobile library adoption behavior but also offers practical insights to
library managers and app developers for promoting such a process.
Keywords Digital libraries, Academic libraries, Information services
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Mobile devices, especially smart phones, have been widely used in recent years due to
their capabilities of supporting many applications. The sales of smart phones to end
users reached 336 million units during the first quarter of 2015, exceeding that of PC,
which are 115.7 million units (Canalys, 2015; Gartner, 2015). Ericsson also shows that
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 34 No. 1, 2016
pp. 2-20
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/LHT-06-2015-0065
Received 16 June 2015
Revised 17 August 2015
Accepted 16 September 2015
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
The authors are grateful to the editors and the referees for their constructive comments that led
to this improved version. The authors were supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant 71203166), the MOE project of Humanities and Social Science (Grant
09YJC870022) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant 2015
Wuhan University project of Humanities and Social Science).
2
LHT
34,1
70 percent of people will use smart phones and 80 percent of all mobile data traffic will
come from smart phones by 2020 Ericsson (2015). The ever-increasing propagation of
smart phones and mobile network has induced great use of mobile access. With the rise
in smart phone use, People are taking advantage of being connected to data wherever
they are. Mobile application (app) is the main access to mobile network. For example,
about 1.6 million apps are there in the two largest stores Apple App Store and Google
Play (Canalys, 2013). Moreover, the number of app users also growing fast, which may
reach 4.4 billion by the end of 2017 according to Portio Research (2013). China is also a
very potential country for the development of smart phones. In China, the shipments of
smart phones are about 40.3 million in the April 2015, (MIIT, 2015) and the cumulative
total downloads of mobile app was about 28.6 billion in the third quarter of 2014,
demonstrating that the mobile app has come of age EnfoDesk (2014).
The rapid growth and use of mobile network, coupled with the development of
mobile commerce, changes users’information search behavior thoroughly. Demands
for mobile library services are dramatically increasing due to large user base of mobile
services. Therefore, libraries explore mobile devices as a way to connect with users,
creating a library application (“app”) or mobile website that allows users to access
library hours, view their library account or even search databases. For Instance, over
76 percent of Chinese top universities which are sponsored with “Project 985”have
provided mobile library apps and want to transfer their customers from PC terminal to
mobile terminal to optimize users’perceived experience. But the success in web services
cannot promise the success in mobile services because there are several problems
which will be generated in the channel transition process.
“Channel”is a significant concept is marketing science. With the developmen t and
popularity of web-based application, more and more people choose online busine ss
model instead of offline business model. With the convenience of mobile-based
application, more and more people shift from web-based method to mobile-base d
method. To clarity this kind of phenomenon, scientists use the concept of “channel”to
simplify it. In this research, we borrow the concept “channel”from marketing science to
library science to make our research more common. In addition, “channel transfer
intention”and “channel usage behavior”is also applied. If the consumer wants to shift
from web-based library service to mobile-based library service, we classify it into
“channel transfer intention.”What’s more, we classify consumers’behavior as “channel
usage behavior”is they continue to use a certain kind of channel.
In fact, we notice that different from some other mobile service such as mobile
purchase, mobile entertainment, mobile social interaction or mobile engagement, not all
of the customers will transfer from web-based platform to mobile app when they want
to use library service. And then, it would be interesting to examine the influencing
factors which stimulating or blocking channel transfer intention, which is the purpose
of the present study. The structure of this paper is organized as follows. The next
section gives a literature review of related studies. The theoretical background of this
study is described in Section 3, coupled with research model and associated
hypotheses. The research methodology and analysis results are presented in Sections 4
and 5, respectively. Section 6 contains some key findings plus theoretical and practical
implications. The last section gives a brief summary of the whole study.
2. Literature review
With the proliferation of mobile devices and mobile connectivity, the popularity of the
mobile app is increasing rapidly. Meanwhile, an important stream of research has
3
Consumers’
channel
transfer
intention
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