A study of the factors affecting the adoption of Mobile Instant

Messaging in China Yulong Ke

School of Management Dalian University of Technology

Dalian, 116024, China keyulong@sina.com.cn

Wenli Li School of Management

Dalian University of Technology Dalian, 116024, China

wlli@dlut.edu.cn

Abstract— Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) has become one of

the most popular communication applications for many users in

China. Previous studies mainly focus on Instant Messaging (IM)

usage for the Internet users, and do not investigate MIM usage

for the mobile phone users. This study proposes a model to

analyze the attitudinal, social and perceived behavior control

factors that are associated with the adoption of MIM usage in

China based on the decomposed theory of planned behavior. An

online questionnaire was used to gather data and a total of 311

valid questionnaires were returned. A structural equation

modeling (SEM) was applied to test the research hypothesis. The

results show that perceived presence awareness has the greatest

positive impact on the attitude of the users in China towards

MIM. In addition, relative advantage, social relationship

influences and self-efficacy all had significant effect except

perceive easy of use and facilitating conditions.

Keywords- mobile instant messaging; adoption; decomposed

theory of planned behavior

Ⅰ.INTRODUCTION Instant Messaging (IM) has evolved from a tool for

computer experts to rapidly exchange vital information to one of the most commonly used communication mechanisms across the globe[1]. Today, most people know of IM as a tool for communicating with friends via providers such as QQ, MSN Messenger, AOL, and Yahoo！Messenger. According to iResearch, a leading research company in Internet and mobile communications, up to July 2008, the number of mobile phone users have exceeded 608 million. The number of wireless application protocol(WAP) user by using mobile phone in China increased from 47 million in 2006 to 92 million in 2007 and by the end of 2011, the number will be up to 360 million[23].As the drastic increase of the mobile

communication market and mobile phone users in China, the combination between IM and mobile phone is becoming an inevitable trend. IM is spreaded from personal computer to mobile phone, it will keep IM online when the user is not in the front of a computer. Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) is the ability to engage in IM from a mobile handset by using SMS, WAP or GPRS technologies. Mobile Instant Messaging users have the advantage of mobility and desire to message with other MIM users as well as fixed IM users on networks such as QQ, MSN Messenger, and so on. Thus, it becomes an extremely desirable method of targeting young consumers.In China, China Mobile Company have begun offering MIM service such as Fetion starting in 2007 and Tencent company promoted a software named mobile QQ in 2008, at the same time, Microsoft also brought out mobile MSN. The market share of MIM, 80.8% MIM users use mobile QQ, Fetion is 9.2 percents and mobile msn shares 5.1 percents[23].On the background of the increasing popularity of going online by using mobile phone, Mobile Instant Messaging is becoming one of the hottest mobile value-added services in China. The number of people using MIM is up to 72 percents of all of the mobile value-added service except short text message service. The revenue of MIM market in China was 670 million and is expected to reach more than 1.5 billion by the end of 2010[23].

China which has the largest number of mobile phone users and has a big mobile communcation martket,has what it takes to succeed in mobile commerce.Thus,China is an ideal site for our study which examines the factors associated with the adoption of MIM. Previous studies mainly focus on IM usage for the Internet users [1,6,7,9], and do not investigate MIM usage for mobile phone users. This study proposes a model to analyze MIM usage based on the decomposed theory of

2009 Eighth International Conference on Mobile Business

978-0-7695-3691-0/09 $25.00 © 2009 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/ICMB.2009.23

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planned behavior and presents an investigation of the factors influencing people in China to adopt MIM usage.

Ⅱ. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND A. Theory of planned behavior(TPB)

The theory of planned behavior which was extended from the theory of reasoned action (TRA) [12,18] was developed to overcome the TRA’s limitations that dealt with an incomplete volitional control. To overcome volitional conditions, modified TRA by including an additional construct, perceived behavioral control(PBC) is added to the TPB model to account for situations where an individual has less than complete control over the behavior[12]. Perceived behavioral control refers to beliefs regarding access to the resources and opportunities needed to perform a behavior. In this model, behavioral intention is formed by one’s attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control which reflects perceptions of internal and external constraints on behavior. B. Decomposed theory of planned behavior(DTPB)

Taylor and Todd[12] decomposed attitude toward behavioral, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control in TPB, and combined them with innovation diffusion theory to construct decomposed TPB. In decomposed TPB, attitude beliefs which represent the product of multiplying an individual’s perceived probability of a certain behavior with the person’s valuation of its consequences, were decomposed into relative advantage, perceived ease of use, and compatibility. Normative beliefs refer to the product of multiplying an individual’s perceived social pressure from salient referts with the person’s motivation to comply with these expectations and they were decomposed into peer influence and superior’s influence. In addition, control beliefs which refer to an individual’s perceived internal and external factiors of controlling the difficulty of performing a certain behavior were decomposed into self-efficacy, resource facilitating conditions, and technology facilitating conditions.

In the study of decomposed TPB in 1995, Taylor and Todd[12] found decomposed TPB provides better predictive power than TAM and TPB models. The impact of relative advantage to attitude, peer and superior’s influence to subjective norms, and self-efficacy and resource facilitating conditions were significant. In contrast, the impact of perceived easy of use and compatibility to attitude were not

significant. In addition, they also found that the three major constructs of the model, attitude, subject norm, and perceived behavioral control were significant determinants of behavioral interion.

As a research model, decomposed TPB has several advantages compared with other IT adoption research models. First, it represents a variety of dimensions will be consistently related to the antecedents of intention [21,22]. In addition, by focusing on specific beliefs, the model becomes more managerially relevant, pointing to specific factors that may influence adoption and usage. Thus, decomposed TPB is chosen as the theoretical basis. Other important factors are also incorporated from MIM studies to develop a comprehensive research model for better interpretation and forecast of the MIM adoption in China.

Ⅲ.RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESE In this study, we focus on the behavioral intention of MIM

adoption instead of the actual usage. From the research model(Figure1), behavioral intention toward MIM adoption is consturcted from attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Three hypotheses are proposed according to the decomposed theory of planned behavior[12].

H1.Attitude is positively associated with behavioral intention of MIM adoption .

H2.Subjective norm is positively associated with behavioral intention of MIM adoption .

H3.Perceived behavioral control is positively associated with behavioral intention of MIM adoption . A. Attitudinal beliefs

Taylor and Todd[12] decomposed attitude as relative advantage and perceived ease of use in decomposed TPB based on innovation diffusion theory[24]. Diffusion of innovation theory suggests that the perceived relative advantage ofan innovation is positively related to its rate of adoption. MIM, as one of innovative communication tool , has the ability to engage in IM from a mobile handset by using SMS, WAP or GPRS technologies and has the advantage of mobility and desire to message with other MIM users as well as fixed IM users on networks such as QQ, MSN Messenger, and so on. In view the advantages of MIM, the hypothese is posited as follow:

H4.Relative advantage is positively associated with

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attitude of MIM adoption . Perceived ease of use represents the degree to which an

innovation is perceived to be difficult to uderstand ,learn or operate. Because of the small screen size ,small keypad of mobile phone and limited typewriting, the usage experience may be less than desired[21]. Although touch screen and voice recognition technology is used. However, the current situation will yet not be changed. Therefore, the hypothese is posited as follow:

H5.Perceived ease of use is positively associated with attitude of MIM adoption .

Perceive Presence awareness[4,6,15] is the most significant factors to examine MIM. With the characteristic of presence awareness, a sense of connectivity is formed even there is no dialogue between users, MIM users are able to know their friends who is online and what their status are. However, this characteristic are not found from other usual communication tools such as the telephone and e-mai.

Social presence theory[17] postulates that a critical factor of a communication medium is its “social presence,” which is defined as the “degree of salience of the other person in the interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationships” [17,22]. In the study of Williams and Christie[17,22],they contend that social presence varies among different media, it affects the nature of the interaction and it interacts with the purpose of the interaction to influence the medium chosen by the individual who wishes to communicate. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H6.Perceived presence awareness is positively associated with attitude of MIM adoption . B. Normative beliefs

Subjective norm is the influence of a person’s normative beliefs that others approve or disapprove a particular behavior. People’s intentions to perform a particular action are a function of subjective norm, or their perception that important others think they ought to do so..

A review of past research, uers may believe that their family members, friends, peers and colleagues(In this paper, it was called social relationship influences)would favor certain behaviors, and this belief tends to influence their intentions and behavior[10,11,12]. The following hypothesis is

proposed: H7:Social relationship influences is positively associated

with subjective norm.

Figure1:The decomposed of theory of planned behavior

model C. Control beliefs

Perceived behavioral control is a general construct dealing with user perceptions of whether a behavioral act is within their control. Perceived behavioral control reflects beliefs regarding access to resources and opportunities required to facilitate a behavior [2]. In the model of decomposed TPB, Taylor and Todd has decomposed perceived behavioral control to self-efficacy, resource facilitating conditions.

Self-efficacy is defined as “People’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances[21]. It is concerned not with the skills one has but with judgments of what one can do with whatever skills one possesses”. Thus, MIM self-efficacy represents an individual’s perceptions of his or her ability to use the mobile phone to accomplish the task of sending a message to a MIM or a IM user.

Several recent studies have found evidence of a relationship between self-efficacy and the adoption of high technology products and innovations. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H8:Self-efficacy is positively associated with perceived behavioral control.

The second component deals with facilitating conditions

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that provide the resources to engage in a behavior. As supporting technological infrastructures become easily and readily available, the services will also become more feasible. As a result, mobile phone users would be expected to be more inclined to adopt MIM. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H9: Facilitating conditions is positively associated with perceived behavioral control.

Ⅳ. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY A. Instrument

Items assessing various constructs are adapted from previous studies with good validity and reliability to ensure content validity. Relative advantage and perceived ease of use were mainly adopted from the study Davis and Taylor and Todd. Perceived presence awareness were from McClea and Huang and Yen[6,7]. Social relationship influences were adopted from T.S.H.Teo and Siau Heong Pok[21]and Taylor and Todd[12]. Self-efficacy and facilitating conditions were mainly adopted from the study Margaret Tan and Thompson S.H.Teo[11] and T.S.H.Teo and Siau Heong Pok[21]. Attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention were mainly adopted from the study of Taylor and Todd. The constructs are used a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from (1)strongly disagree to (5)strongly agree. The gender, age, current profession are also investigated. B. Web-based survey

A Web-based survey is used for the data collection. Compared to sheet questionnaires, web-based survey has its own benefits [3,11]. Using web-based survey fits well with the research object. Most of the MIM users, they are IM users of the Internet before they use MIM. Secondly, the internet is easily to reach out to potential respondents. Thirdly, the cost of using the Internet is low compared to other data collection tools. Fourthly, because of the automatically captured of the data in the database, it will saved time and helps reduce the data entry errors.

A total of 311 questionnaires were collected by the online forum. The largest proportion of respondents were between 19 and 30 years old and represent 77% of all respondents. Of these, 51% were male and 49% were female. And 40% were at work and 49% were student and 11% were others. The demographic profiles of respondents is list in tableⅠ.

Table Ⅰ PROFILE OF SAMPLES

NO. %

Gender

Male 159 51

Female 152 49

Age

Under 18 53 17

19-30 239 77

Over 30 19 6

Profession

Student 152 49

At work 124 40

Others 35 11

Ⅴ. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS The validity and the reliability analysis of the measurement

model were conducted by using SPSS 15. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation was used to test for validity. In addition, Cronbach alpha was used to test for reliability. The Cronbach alpha values of all the constructs are all over 0.72 and all of the items standardized factor loading are also higher than 0.60.Hence,The result represents good validity and reliability(Table Ⅱ).

Table Ⅱ CONSTRUCT VALIDITY

Construct Loadings Cronbach

alpha ATT 0.74-0.88 0.91 SN 0.69-0.78 0.72

PBC 0.65-0.83 0.86 BI 0.70-0.88 0.88 RA 0.70-0.76 0.81 PEU 0.80-0.83 0.90 PPA 0.68-0.73 0.85 SR 0.65-0.84 0.87 SE 0.60-0.88 0.85 FC 0.65-0.72 0.74

After analysizing the validity and the reliability, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was test by using Amos7.0. A few goodness-of-fit measures were chose to assess the

model in terms of model fit. 2χ / df ,goodness of fit

index(GFI), adjust goodness of fit index(AGFI), normed fit

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index(NFI) and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) are choose. According to previous studies, GFI should be equal to or greater than 0.9 to accept the model. AGFI should be above 0.8. NFI is should be higher than 0.9 ,RMSEA is suggested smaller than 0.06.

The hypothesized model was tested by using the maximum

likelihood estimation. The result got 2χ / df (1.568), GFI

(0.918), AGFI (0.906) , NFI (0.930) and RMSEA (0.043) which were all within the accepted values.

Finds for H1( γ =0.35, p<0.05),H3( γ =0.51, p<0.05) suggest an association of relative advantage and perceive presence awareness with attitude. Finds for H2 (γ=0.21, p>0.05), suggests no significant effect on attitude. Finds for H4(γ=0.43, p<0.05), suggests a positive association of social relationship influences with subjective norm. Findings for H5(γ=0.29, p<0.05), suggest positive association between self-efficacy with perceived behavioral control. The rejection of H6(γ=0.18, p>0.05), Facilitating conditions has little effect on perceived behavioral control. Findings for H7(γ=0.23, p<0.05), H8(γ=0.37, p<0.05), H9(γ=0.16, p<0.05) suggest attitude, subject norm and perceived behavioral control all have significant effect on respondents’ adoption intentions.

The results show that the intention to adopt a MIM is associated with attitudinal factors, normative factor and perceived behavioral control factors. This is consistent with the findings of previous studies[10,11,13,15,18].The attitudinal factors that are found to have significant influence on behavioral intention are relative advantage, perceived presence awareness.Relative advantage is probably due to the reason. Mobile phone is widly used in China, and people’s communication is much more frequent and people need not just stay in front of a computer. Perceived presence awareness allows users to know their friends who is online and what their status are. This noticeable character greatly affects the attitude to adopt MIM. Whereas perceived ease of use is found to have insignificant influence.

Subjective norm has significant influence on behavioral intention [13,15,18]. subjective norm is an important determinant of behavioral intention especially in the early stages of the innovation diffusion cycle. In the early stages,

potential adopters have not much information about the new innovation, they have to rely on their referent groups for informatio and for opinion s before they take any concrete actions towards adoption.

Perceived behavioral control is also found to have an insignificant influence on behavioral intention to adopt MIM. This finding is consistent with the findings of previous studies

Self-efficacy is expected to have a significant influence on perceived behavioral control. This is consistent with the findings of previous studies [10,11,13,15],which found that self-efficacy has a significant effect on intention to adopt new innovations. Whereas facilitating conditions has little effect on perceived behavioral control. This is consistent with the Chinese mobile communication market. The price of a mobile phone is much lower and the fee of the MIM service monthly is also very low.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This research is partially supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China(No. 70572099), the Social Science Foundation of Liaoning Province(No. 1050349).The authors are grateful to the editors and reviewers for their valuable comments and constructive suggestions on MIM proving the early version of the paper.

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