Understanding the Development and Diffusion of Mobile Commerce Technologies in China: A Biographical Study with an Actor-Network Theory Perspective

Abstract

Mobile commerce technologies cater to multiple types of users who use them for various purposes in a dynamic fashion over time. Their development and diffusion therefore involves many actors who participate in changing market configurations. In this study we address this complex sociotechnical setting by investigating the "biography" of mobile text messaging, an instance of mobile commerce technologies, in China. Specifically, we apply an actor-network perspective to understand the development and diffusion of text messaging over time and the changing actor configurations. This analysis was based on 1,403 news items pertaining to the Chinese telecommunications market, which were screened from over 40,000 news items produced over sixteen years. The deduced pattern indicates that the diffusion of text messaging, and possibly other mobile commerce technologies, includes four actor network configurations. Mobile commerce platforms begin to operate within a small network of actors, and via a dynamic process of events and interactions, they end up with a complex network of actors, which can include content and service providers, customers, regulators, and businesses that drive mobile commerce technology diffusion and breadth of uses across markets. The suggested pattern provides a "biography of artifacts" regarding mobile technologies at the national level.KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: Actor-network theory, mobile commerce platforms, mobile services development and diffusion processes, short messaging services.Many new mobile commerce technologies or platforms, especially ubiquitous ones, can serve multiple purposes in varying contexts [21, 23]. These multipurpose devices, applications and features present users with many ways, some unanticipated, in which the technology can be used [33]. For example, mobile data services, mobile microblogging platforms, and short messaging services (SMS) can serve business purposes as well as hedonic, social, and personal purposes, providing users, such as individuals, organizations, and governments, with a broad and constantly evolving range of features and uses. They can therefore be used differently and for different purposes by diverse types of users. We call such platforms, which are at the heart of mobile commerce, multipurpose information and communication services (MICS) to describe the broad nature of users and uses of these technologies.It is important to study the development and diffusion of such artifacts because these underlie the benefits of using these technologies. Among the many studies that have accordingly focused on this topic, the majority rely on diffusion metamodels, such as the diffusion of innovations theory [35]. Such models recognize the dynamic nature of diffusion. Nevertheless, the application of these models has taken mainly a narrow view; studies have often focused on a snapshot of the way users perceive the technology and the environment [30], and taken a limited genealogical microperspective [5], according to which the information technology (IT) artifact is...

How does media richness contribute to customer loyalty to mobile instant messaging?

“…Various applications and services are being developed for mobile phone users, with short message services (SMS) a classical killer application (Drossos et al , 2013; Tseng and Teng, 2016). As smartphones have gained more popularity, mobile instant messaging (MIM) – messaging applications with multimedia capabilities – has been catching up with SMS (Wang et al , 2015). Moreover, 600 million people were using MIM during Q2 2014, an increase of 30 per cent since Q4 2012 (Mander, 2014, according to Global Web Index report, which covers 32 countries and nearly 90 per cent of the global Internet audience).…”

Introduction to the Special Issue on Mobile Commerce: Mobile Commerce Research Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow—What Remains to Be Done?

“…The authors identify twenty constructs that influence engagement in check-in behavior and demonstrate that social condition plays the most critical role in motivating people. The second study, by Youwei Wang, Yufei Yuan, Ofir Turel, and Zhiling Tu [30], investigates the "biography" of a common service: mobile text messaging, in China. The authors base their analysis on 1,403 news items that were screened from more than 40,000 news items over sixteen years.…”

“…For this special issue, three articles [8,13,30] were selected from an initial set of twenty-eight submissions. The articles have undergone several cycles of revision and selection.…”

Internet Village Motoman Project in rural Cambodia: bridging the digital divide

“…A actor-network approach-based study on smartphone use revealed a multistage mobile commerce technology diffusion pattern, which can serve as a platform for further study and promotion of the diffusion of multipurpose information and communication services (Wang et al, 2015). The present study applies the actor-network approach to the Internet Village Motoman Project because the use of technology in rural areas where most users live below the poverty line involves complex factors.…”