Information technology choices by consumers and firms

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Title Information technology choices by consumers and firms
Publication Type dissertation
School or College David Eccles School of Business
Department Entrepreneurship & Strategy
Author Hu, Han-fen
Date 2012-08
Description This dissertation consists of three essays that investigate the general decision process of users' choices regarding information technology (IT) applications and products, focusing on placebo effects of software pricing, incorporating user perceptions and product attributes in modeling software product choices, and firms' practices of green IT. Taking a customer-centric approach to users' assessments of IT applications and products, I address the evaluative responses of individual consumers and organizations to market information including price, product attributes, and key contextual factors. The objective of the first essay is to understand the placebo-like effects invoked by the price of software products on consumers' satisfaction, problem-solving performance, and purchasing behavior. Built upon the response expectancy theory, a research framework and a series of hypotheses are proposed. I test the hypotheses with a controlled experiment, and the data supports most of the hypotheses. Specifically, a user's outcome expectancy, as activated by software price, affects not only his/her satisfaction, but also the problem-solving performance using the software product. Satisfaction and actual problem-solving performance in turn affects the user's willingness-to-pay. In order to better explain and predict consumers' preferential choices of software products, I propose in the second essay a model that incorporates product attributes and consumer perceptions to estimate users' software product selection. The influences of product attributes on users' perceptions of product characteristics are also examined. With a choice-based conjoint study, and the collection of additional data on users' perceived product characteristics, I demonstrate that the proposed model can better explain and predict users' software choices than the model with product attributes only, or with user perceptions only, in terms of the in-sample fit and the holdout prediction hit rate at the individual-level and the aggregate-level. The third essay examines important drivers of green IT practices by firms. I propose a framework premised on social contracts theory and institutional theory, and then use it to develop a model that explains firms' decisions. I test the model and the associated hypotheses with the survey data collected from 304 major firms in Taiwan. Overall, the results show global environmental awareness, industry norms, and key stakeholders' attitudes affect a firm's green IT practices directly. Competitors seem to play a limited role, as suggested by an insignificant impact on the firm's green IT practices.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Consumer behavior; Green IT; Software product
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Han-fen Hu 2012
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 724,528 bytes
Identifier etd3/id/3413
ARK ark:/87278/s64f4zzw
Setname ir_etd
ID 196977
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s64f4zzw
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