The impact of cultural differences towards product innovation in smartphone industry: a cross cultural study on consumers from Saudi Arabia and United Kingdom
Smartphone penetration is growing across the globe and people from all over the world are increasingly using this device. However, the average replacement cycle length of smartphone is increasing. The consumers are taking longer now to replace their smartphone. This presents the problem for the smartphone corporations to better understand the challenges currently present for consumers regarding adopting new smartphones and how the latest technology is perceived across cultures. Previous literature confirms the link of culture and uptake of technology. However, there are lack of technology acceptance models which takes culture into account and there is scarcity of frameworks which compares European and Middle Eastern culture in context of innovation. The purpose of our study is to explore the impact of culture within smartphone industry by developing a framework which compares adoption behaviour. This study aims to fill this gap by developing and testing a conceptual framework based on Technology Acceptance Model, Theory of Reasoned Action, Sheth Model and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension Theory. Researcher attempts to validate the moderating effect of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions on behavioural intention to use new smartphone technology. This exploratory study uses interpretivist approach and gathers qualitative data by conducting 28 in depth semi-structured interviews to evaluate the psychological behaviour of the consumers in UK and Saudi Arabia aged 18-34. Our study concluded that both adoption and resistance towards innovation within smartphone usage are driven to a varying extent by Individualism, Uncertainty avoidance, and Power distance dimensions. The research also showed that smartphone users across both cultures believed that there has not been a meaningful innovation within smartphone industry in last 5 years. This study contributes by enlightening Policy makers, Smartphone corporations, and Software developers on factors relevant in adoption of latest smartphone features (Voice Assistants, Digital Payments). It also contributes to body of knowledge by confirming the impact and relevance of culture in technological industry. The study provides an in-depth analysis in the area which is underdeveloped theoretically and encourage future researchers to apply our model in different regions and industries.
H Gwyddorau Cymdeithasol (Cyffredinol), HM Cymdeithaseg, L Addysg (Cyffredinol)
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