DECLARATORIAS DE HERENCIAS

Based on the literature review, three theoretical foundations have been established. For examining consumer decision-making process on mobile retail applications, Prospect Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour are used. In order to identify the relationship between the time consumption of making a purchase decision, Minkowski’s Spacetime diagram in the theory of special relativity demonstrates how three different sorts of time can be understood within one frame of reference. Meanwhile, the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the concept of customer perceived value, together, build a strong relationship between information factors (in the Theory of Planned Behaviour) and information interactions (customer perceived value co-creation).

In this following section, the five research objectives are organised into three groupings: detailed discussions are provided.

99 6.2.1 Research Objective 1 & 2

In chapter 3, two theoretical foundations of this thesis are established; they are Prospect Theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979, 1992) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991, 2006). Those two were selected for isolating the probability of reaching a decision as an important and independent factor (Kusev et al., 2009; Chudry et al., 2011). The probability of reaching a decision at the end of a decision-making process can be separated into two kinds. The first one is the actual probability after what the consumer has actually done in a decision-making process. This requires a full examination of the actual decision-making processes on a mobile retail application, including what foundations have been used to collect the preferred information to support the decision-making process

(Sternberg, 1996) as suggested in a cognitive approach of understanding decision-making (Foxall, 1993); and what the final result was (Argan and Akyildiz, 2014), including ‘to buy’, ‘not to buy’ or ‘no decision can be reached’. However, for customers to evaluate their decision- making journeys, there is another crucial part of their experience, which is the time

consumed. Literature in customer experience has suggested that customers tend to evaluate their service experiences differently under time pressure (Cian et al., 2015). However, little has addressed what the nature of this time pressure is (Bazerman and Malhorta, 2006), or where this time pressure comes from (Fernando and Jackson, 2006). Is, for example, the source of this time pressure the busy everyday lifestyle as part of the external environment or something related to customers’ internal factors? (Shove, 2010).

Additionally, the results of this examination will be geometrically demonstrated to provide a strong connection to the concept of information overload (Solomon et al., 2012). The geometrical method is following the third theoretical foundation – spacetime diagram in Minkowski’s perspective on the theory of special relativity (Dainton, 2016).

Therefore, this thesis proposes the first general study objective, which will split into two specific research objectives. They are:

Study objective 1. To explore the relationships between mobile retail application function usage, the probability of reaching a decision, and the time consumption of the decision- making process.

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This is split into two research objectives:

Research Objective 1 (RO1). To develop a time-related analytical approach for measuring and analysing consumers’ behavioural data on mobile retail applications.

Research Objective 2 (RO2). To explore the relationship between the usage, the time consumption and the results of consumer decision-making process using the method developed in RO1.

6.2.2 Research Objective 3 & 4

According to Prospect Theory, consumers weigh the actual probability of reaching a decision and their predicted probability of reaching a decision differently (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979, 1992; Gonzalez and Wu, 1999). This difference is influential to the ultimate evaluation of the service quality and the customer experience on mobile retail applications (Grönroos, 2012). The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), another theoretical foundation, suggests that a consumers’ control beliefs mediate information processing during a decision-making process (Ritter and Walter, 2012). More importantly, consumers generate those control beliefs prior to their actual actions. The control beliefs of a consumer are functioning in such a way that consumers predict that they can maximise the probability of reaching a decision (Homburg et al., 2006). Once a consumer rationally decides his/her next move of searching, receiving and processing information on mobile applications, their control beliefs become actual control, which impacts their actual behaviours (Shaw et al., 2000). This thesis sees the deliberating of control beliefs as a dynamic process and that the predicted usage value is constantly impacting the result of this deliberation (Greifeneder et al., 2011). This dynamic and value oriented view urges this thesis to conduct an examination of how consumers predict the value that they will

perceive from using a mobile retail application. The construct of Customer Perceived Value offers a very capable research lens suggesting, first, a beneficial and sacrificial view for examining value creation (Sanfey et al., 2003; Woodall, 2003); second, an interactive perspective for analysing value co-creation with the parties involved identified

(Chakravarti et al., 2006); and finally, the role of the focal consumer in all the interactions between them and other parties (Grönroos, 2012).

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Therefore, this thesis proposes a further general study objective. Similar to the first general study objective, two specific research objectives are formulated to ensure the general one can be achieved. They are

Study objective 2. To explore the role of User Control on how consumers believe they should perform their decision-making in the predicted value proposition of mobile service.

This is further split into two research objectives:

Research Objective 3 (RO3). To develop a conceptual model as one perspective of understanding the predicted value proposition on mobile service channels.

Research Objective 4 (RO4). To test the conceptual model from RO3 for exploring the role of User Control in the final testing result – the structural model.

6.2.3 Research Objective 5

When the first four research objectives have been achieved, as suggested by Prospect Theory and the Theory of Planned Behaviour, a comparison between consumers’ predicted value of using mobile retail application and their actual perceived value is to be conducted. This task is related to the probability weighting concept in the first theoretical foundation – Prospect Theory (Kahneman and Tversky, 1979, 1992), and the difference between

consumers’ control beliefs and actual control in the second theoretical foundation – the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991, 2006). Specifically, this theoretical discussion will generate practical suggestions for mobile retail application design.

Therefore, the third general study objective, and at the same time research objective 5, is:

Study objective 3

Research Objective 5 (RO5). To offer suggestions on mobile retail application design to enhance customer perceived value generation.

102 6.2.4 Where Objectives Will Be Pursued

Sub-objectives RO1 and RO3 will be pursued via a process of theory development in the context of the chapter on Research Methodology (Chapter 7).

Sub-objectives RO2 and RO5 will be pursued via empirical research reported in Results Chapters 8 and 9.

Objective RO5 will be pursued as a matter of Discussion in Chapter 10.