استفاده از فن آوری تلفن همراه و عملکرد بازار B2B تحت تصویب الزامی

This paper investigates the relationship between mandatory adoption of mobile information technology and market performance in the business-to-business (B2B) setting. This study presents and tests the B2B technology satisfaction model (TSM), including perceived loss of control as the mandatory technology acceptance-specific variable. The results of this study reveal that integrating perceived loss of control with user satisfaction and the TAM (technology acceptance model) in a single model can better explain the B2B market performance model. The empirical results suggest that perceived loss of control has a negative effect on user satisfaction and perceived market performance is influenced by user satisfaction and perceived usefulness. Managerial implications of the study are discussed.

Interest in the use of mobile applications in the business environment is increasing (e.g. Leung and Antypas, 2001, Varshney et al., 2002 and Varshney and Vetter, 2002). Leung and Antypas (2001) suggested that mobile commerce can enhance business efficiency by distributing information to the workforce remotely and by offering new channels for customer interaction. Varshney et al. (2002) further suggested that organizations capable of harnessing the power of mobile technologies to automate and streamline business processes may reap the benefits of improved productivity, lowered operational costs, increased customer satisfaction, and improved decision-making. Previous research has addressed the effect of mobile technology acceptance at a conceptual level. The empirical relationship between mobile technology usage and market performance has not been addressed, especially in the business- to-business (B2B) environment. Technology acceptance may be mandated by an organization or nation (e.g. taxation) in industrial marketing. It is an important issue of industrial marketing to maximize the effect of mobile technology use on B2B market performance. Previous researchers have found Information Technology (IT) to be positively linked to firm performance (Brynjolfsson and Hitt, 1996, Hammer and Mangurian, 1987, Narasimlan and Kim, 2001 and Sanders, 2007). Sanders (2007) showed that supplier's use of IT has a positive and significant impact on supplier performance. Hammer and Mangurian (1987) suggest that IT improves firm performance indirectly by fostering inter-firm relationships. Our research may contribute to the B2B marketing literature by empirically validating the relationship between mobile IT usage and B2B market performance under mandatory adoption. Our research can be related to the sales force management literatures. Recent industrial marketing research has shown that IT adoption can lead to sales force performance (Avlonitis and Panagopoulos, 2005 and Robinson et al., 2005). Our research can contribute to the sales force management literature by suggesting the managerial implications for linking sales force IT usage with B2B market performance when the new IT adoption is mandated in the sales force setting. What is the appropriate marketing variable to evaluate successful mandatory technology adoption? What is the unique variable specific to mandatory technology adoption? What should B2B marketing managers do in order to link mobile technology use to market performance? We attempt to answer these research questions. B2B markets have fewer partners, closer buyer-seller relationships, better technology and better information exchange than business-to-consumer (B2C) markets (Hutt & Spech, 1998). Not surprisingly, the technology acceptance model (TAM) has been applied in the industrial marketing literature by several researchers (e.g. Avlonitis and Panagopoulos, 2005, Robinson et al., 2005 and Schillewaert et al., 2005). However, these studies focused on volitional technology acceptance, thus generally fail to consider the unique features of mandatory technology users (i.e., low relative control in interaction with the forms of technology provided by the organization). In addition, the actual usage or intention to use commonly included in the volitional (traditional) TAM as the acceptance variable does not imply the successful acceptance in the mandatory setting. In the voluntary technology acceptance setting, the increase of IT usage or intention to use IT implies the acceptance of new IT. In the mandatory setting, however, the actual usage or intention to use does not have any meaning in evaluating new IT acceptance. Considering the trend toward IT adoption in most marketing departments, it is not the important issue whether the users accept IT, or not. The critical point is whether the users are satisfied using the newly adopted IT and whether user satisfaction affects market performance, or not. Successful adoption should be evaluated not in terms of ‘actual usage’ but in terms of ‘user satisfaction’ under mandatory adoption. Considering that mandatory technology adoption is more common in the B2B environment compared to B2C environment, it is necessary to search for an additional construct that is specific to mandatory technology adoption and to suggest the new mandatory technology satisfaction model. Traditional TAM cannot address this issue. We suggest TSM (Technology Satisfaction Model) as the mandatory technology adoption model in order to explain the relationship between mandatory technology usage and B2B market performance. The first purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of ‘satisfaction’ under mandatory adoption of mobile IT. When use of IT is mandated, as is often the case when introducing new B2B transaction systems, satisfaction has been suggested as a more appropriate measure of IT success than IT usage (Adams et al., 1992, Chau, 1996, DeLone and McLean, 1992 and Melone, 1990). In accordance with these studies, we propose TSM, replacing actual usage/intention to use with ‘user satisfaction’. Satisfaction has been used as an outcome measure in marketing research focused on buyer-seller relationships (Anderson and Narus, 1990, Ganesan, 1994, Janda et al., 2002 and Sanzo et al., 2003). Gómez, McLaughlin, and Wittink (2004) investigated the empirical relationship between customer satisfaction and retail sales performance. However, the linkage between satisfaction and B2B market performance in the context of mandatory IT adoption has not been investigated. We bridge this gap in industrial marketing literatures by proposing and validating an integrated model that explains how mandatory mobile IT adoption affects user satisfaction and B2B market performance. To the best of our knowledge, our research is the first attempt to examine the mandatory mobile technology adoption — B2B market performance relationship by posing the ‘satisfaction’ variable as the key linkage between marketing and information systems literatures.