New Perspectives on M-Commerce Research

This paper summarizes the progress and the future directions of m-commerce research, as "the emerging set of applications and services people can access from their Internet-enabled mobile devices."

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper summarizes progress and future directions of research. Despite rapid proliferation of Internet-enabled handsets, empirical research has been undertaken only in a limited number of research areas. Important progress has been made in Internet and SMS-based advertising adoption, but other important topics, such as e- commerce and comparison, mobile-based word-of-mouth, and methodological issues, have rarely been addressed. Future studies should explore these areas. In closing, seven contributions to this Special Issue are introduced. Keywords: IT management; M-commerce; Marketing; Wireless communication 1. Defining M-Commerce The Internet-enabled handset has rapidly achieved worldwide penetration, due to its very personal nature and sophisticated communication technologies. However, unlike e-commerce research, empirical explorations of mcommerce have seen only modest growth, because of considerable uncertainties involved in research. One major problem in research is lack of standards in terms, concepts, and theories. Although infrastructure of wireless technology varies across markets, researchers tend to use term m-commerce without considering specific conditions and prerequisites of what they are examining. In addition, industry participation in academic research is at best occasional, and, in many cases, rapidly developing technology may not be accepted as much as practitioners expect: either because of higher cost per service ratio, or simply because these services can easily be replaced by wired Internet. Current Internet applications enable consumers to access a variety of services: Web information search, SMS (short message services), MMS (multimedia message service), banking, payment, gaming, emailing, chat, weather forecast, GPS (global positioning service), and so forth. Collectively, we denominate this wide array of services as However, a clear distinction between and PC-based electronic commerce has rarely been made. In a narrow sense, can be defined as any transaction with a monetary value that is conducted via a telecommunications network [Durlacher 1999]. Sadeh [2002] characterizes more broadly, as the emerging set of applications and services people can access from their Internet-enabled devices. Typically, takes place in a strategic platform called a mobile portal. There, third-generation (3G) communication systems offer a high degree of commonality of worldwide roaming capability, supporting a wide range of Internet and multimedia applications and services with higher data rates. From perspective of marketing, Nysveen, Pedersen, and Thorbjornsen [2005] propose a grid of Internet services classification that employs four primary axes: person-interactive versus machine-interactive, and goal-oriented versus experiential services. Figure 1 is an adapted version of this classification scheme. Person occurs between people through a medium, while machine refers to interaction between people and medium. In latter, users can freely modify content and form of a mediated environment. A goal-oriented process is defined by utilitarian benefits, while an experiential process provides hedonic benefits. This classification grid offers a key to understanding future research directions of m-commerce. That is, future research should clearly define process characteristics, and type of interactivity, in order to provide audience with clear implications regarding a specific service. In particular, very little research has addressed question of interactivity in devices, although it has been argued that technology is an alternative way to connect to Internet (i. …