Telepresence, Flow, and Behaviour in the Virtual Retail Environment

Flow theory, as a basis to facilitate the development of compelling experiences, has received growing attention over the past two decades. Facing this plethora of interest, it is obvious that telepresence and flow in human-computer interactions are important issues. The objectives of this chapter is to review and empirically analyze the relationships among flow theory, the telepresence concept, and online behaviour. Particularly, this research investigates the impact of telepresence and flow on Websites visitors’ visit time, perceived visit time, and number of visited pages. An online survey was conducted. The findings indicate that telepresence has a positive effect on the flow state, as measured by concentration and enjoyment. The consumers’ level of concentration positively influenced their visit time, perceived visit time, and number of visited pages. Enjoyment has a positive effect on perceived visit time, but no significant effect on actual visit time and number of visited pages. Discussion and implications of these results are exhibited. Suggestions concerning future research are also presented.

Evaluation of South African Universities’ Web Portal Interfaces using a Triangulation of Ubiquitous Computing Evaluation Areas and Technology Acceptance Model

There are growing concerns over the user friendliness and other usability issues of South African Universities’ Web Portal Interfaces (UWPIs), which obviously will negate the user acceptance of the UWPIs. The main goal of this study is to develop a framework that could be used to evaluate and provide additional guidelines to improve the Usability and User Acceptance of South African UWPIs. The study applies a triangulation of Ubiquitous computing Evaluation Areas (UEAs) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as theoretical foundations to derive the research model. Multiple regression and stepwise regression analyses are used. The results suggest that Interaction and Invisibility of UWPIs are the most important measures that have a huge impact on user acceptance and usability, respectively. The results of the study provide guidelines for the design and development of South Africa UWPIs to meet their usability and user acceptance.

Ubiquitous Game-Based Learning in Higher Education

The rise of mobile broadband devices and services has significantly changed the role of mobile devices in people's daily lives by enabling the provision of innovative applications and services anywhere, anytime. Despite the fact that new ideas and innovation mainly occur within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), the adoption of mobile and ubiquitous technologies by HEIs is still in its early stages. This chapter attempts to provide a framework to support Higher Education Institutions towards implementing mobile and ubiquitous, game-based learning activities. Aligned with the objective of this book, this chapter presents some examples and best practices of implementing this framework towards achieving the learning goals of future professionals in the fields of electronic and ubiquitous commerce.

How to Design a Virtualized Platform?

In this chapter, the authors present the project “WITE 2.0.” This project is at the crossroads of various issues related to mobility (Urry, 2007) and use of Information and Communication Technologies. WITE 2.0 is a part of the designing process of a collaborative communication tool: “a virtualized and unified platform.” The authors define scenarios of teleworking practices, “equipped” by ICTs, and use these scenarios to better specify the platform. The project started at the end of 2010 and continued for a period of 18 months. The analysis is based on several complementary methodologies: a qualitative study (47 semi-structured interviews) and an experimentation of the platform. They present the main results of the interview survey through the following themes: remote management, skills, articulation of private and professional spheres, and the maturity of technologies. The authors also describe how these elements help the understanding of the evolution of workers’ practices.

Understanding Brand Implication and Engagement on Facebook

What are the drivers for Brand engagement and implication on Facebook? In order to explore the impact of motivations on content and information sharing on Facebook brand pages, this study proposes an analysis focused on a reduced number of motivations and a proposal of a statistical model attempting to link the frequency of posting and liking on Facebook in general and Brand engagement to motivations. The aim of the study is to assess the impact of motivations on brand implication and frequency of posting on Facebook. The authors use the concept of brand implication measure a deep interest toward brands on Facebook. The concept of frequency of posting and liking focuses on the tendency to post or like frequently each time the user connects to Facebook. The motivations the authors introduced are based on the literature for sharing on social networks.

“From Clicks to Taps and Swipes”

Organizations constantly strive to improve the richness and reach of their knowledge resources to ensure optimal performance of their employees in their job functions. Some of the techniques that organizations have used in the past have included state-of-the-art search engines, creating a directed navigation by mapping content to employee transactions, and incorporating user experience design heuristics. Search engine improvement is reputed to be the most used technique, even though its effectiveness in organizational knowledge management systems has not been confirmed. With more and more organizations now having a mobile employee base, there is now a need to provide employees access to organizational resources anytime and anywhere. This chapter provides insight into some of the challenges in organizational knowledge management systems and the implications of designing a mobile system. It proposes some heuristics on designing a knowledge management system for mobile systems and proposes a framework to validate it against available user acceptance models.

The Role of Communication in Online Trust

This chapter aims at better understanding the behavior of the Internet user. It suggests studying the role of communication on the trust of Internet users towards commercial Websites. In order to realize this research, the authors mobilized the Communicative Action Theory of Jürgen Habermas (1987). Therefore, they have brought a new perspective in understanding online trust following action theory. For Habermas, communication is an action that depends on contextual, cultural, and human factors, which cannot be reduced to deterministic mechanisms. He deals with three types of action, which an actor might pursue following his interests, which can be instrumental, strategic, or emancipatory. The instrumental and strategic are purposive-rational actions, which aim at achieving success and at developing a calculated trust based on calculation of the advantages and the costs of the relation, whereas, the communicative action is coordinated by mutual understanding that allows the development of a relational trust based on social interactions. In communicative action, mutual understanding through language allows the social integration of actors and the coordination of their plans and their different interests. In this case, trust is based on a common definition of the situation and the resolution of conflicts of interests between actors. Internet is a medium of communication that can support the three kinds of action. The instrumental and strategic actions allow the development of calculated trust, whereas the communicative action allows the development of relational trust based on social interaction and mutual comprehension.

Explaining Mobile Services Adoption between China and Developed Countries from a Cultural Perspective

Little research has been done to explore the adoption of mobile information services from a cultural perspective. This research is designed to study mobile information services adoption from a cultural perspective. Based on the two cultural dimensions (individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance), two research hypotheses are presented. To examine these hypotheses, an exploratory study is carried out with a mobile information service called Mobile Tourist Service Recommender (MTSR) system with both respondents from developed countries and China. According to the results, one research hypothesis is supported, while the other research hypothesis (H1) is not supported in this exploratory study. The findings indicate that the cultural dimensions play important roles in how mobile information services are used and adopted in two different cultural settings: culture in developed countries and the Chinese culture. The results also highlight the relevance of the cultural dimensions (individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance) as the factors affecting the adoption of mobile information services.

Texted Environmental Campaign in China

This chapter examines how local residents were informed and rallied by the Internet and mobile phone messages for an unprecedented protest against the construction of a hazardous chemical plant in Xiamen, China, and how the municipal government responded by encouraging public participation in environmental decision making via the same communicational platforms. Using combined research methods including interviews and secondary data analysis, this research investigates the role of the Internet and cell phone message in mobilizing the general public to participate in the environmental protection movement in China. The role of Word Of Mouth (WOM) in the environmental movement is discovered for the first time. The unique mechanism of cellular telephones and the Internet in public participation involving multiple stakeholders in China’s environmental policy-making process is also discussed.

Ubiquitous Computing in the Cloud

This chapter analyses the evolution of the Internet, shifting from a decentralized architecture designed around the end-to-end principle with powerful mainframe/personal computers at each end, to a more centralized network designed according to the mainframe model, with increasingly weaker user’s devices that no longer have the ability to run a server nor to process any consistent amount of data or information. The advantages of ubiquitous computing (allowing data to become available from anywhere and at any time regardless of the device) should thus be counterbalanced with the costs it entails (loss of users’ autonomy, concerns as regards privacy, and freedom of expression, etc.).