Understanding personal mobile technologies: decomposing and de-averaging the value of a smartphone

The study focuses on the multifaceted motives for adopting personal technologies. Specifically, it uses earlier models of technology adoption to develop a model of smartphone acceptance. The model is unique in that it decomposes attitudinal beliefs into three components: functional value, hedonic value, and symbolic value. Latent class analysis facilitates the identification of three user types. The analysis shows that value drivers, control beliefs, and normative beliefs play different roles for determining smartphone acceptance, depending on three different individual characteristics (i.e., playfulness, public self-consciousness, and innovativeness). The paper makes a contribution to the information systems literature by providing an analysis of the drivers of overall value perceptions for multipurpose information appliances and of the role of individual differences among potential users in forming these attitudes.