Mobile commerce innovation in the airline sector: An investigation of mobile services acceptance in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The advancement of Information Technology (IT) has changed the business landscape in many industries and especially the airline sector. Modern Information Communication Technologies (ICT) provide powerful tools for organizations and can significantly influence their operation, structure, and strategy. The emergence of mobile technologies has created a new innovation for airline companies by increasing the availability, frequency, and speed of communication between the company and their customers. This research aims to investigate the factors influencing the customers behavioural intention to adopt and utilize mobile services during their travel process. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) provide the theoretical basis for explaining how consumers perceive mobile services which they access and operate by their mobile handset. To achieve that, this research employed a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative approaches with a dominant quantitative method. A consumer web-based survey was conducted in the Saudi Arabia travel sector with respect to mobile services usage in airline sector , 307 valid questionnaires were received and analyzed by using SPSS (V.18), correlation, regression and factor analysis tests were conducted . The findings of this research revealed that, perceived usefulness, mobility and compatibility are loaded to be one predictor of behavioural intention to use mobile services in Saudi Arabia. The reason behind it may be interpreted as customers nowadays have seen mobility and compatibility as attributes of perceived usefulness. Further, social influence, perceived ease of use and personal innovativeness were found to significantly influence the behavioural intention .whereas, perceived risk was found not to be a predictor to the behavioural intention to use mobile services in Saudi Arabia. Finally, the model analysis and survey evaluation enable airline companies to make mobile commerce service provision decision, these findings contribute to a road map for airline companies to encourage their customers to adopt mobile services and keep them engaged during the overall travel life cycle