Understanding user's perceived playfulness toward mobile information and entertainment services in New Zealand

vii The convergence of mobile commerce and internet technologies has promised users unprecedented convenience and greater enjoyment. Over the past few years, the development of mobile information and entertainment services (MIES) has been phenomenal. Recently, research has been conducted into ways toward better acceptance of these services by users. However, many of these studies are technical driven, without discussing important end user needs. To understand users’ perception associated with mobile information and entertainment services the author extended and empirically tested a new antecedent model of Perceived Playfulness—an intrinsic motivator toward technology acceptance by users, based on previous research. It has been shown that user’s Perceived Playfulness toward information technologies has a direct impact on his/her subsequent use. Using the new antecedent model of Perceived Playfulness, the author argues users’ Autotelic Personality, Perceived Service Quality, Perceived Technology Compatibility, their Motivation for Using and tolerance of Social Influence affect their Perceived Playfulness when interacting with MIES. A questionnaire was administered to students in business and computing schools at Auckland University of Technology. The closed-ended questions within the questionnaire were used to validate the proposed research model. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares. Most of the proposed hypotheses were supported, rendering several significant findings in this thesis.