Technology PhD Abstract Samples

Written by Dr. William P

Topic: The Role of Social Influence in Shaping Attitudes towards Smart Home Technologies: Analysis of Smart Speaker Adoption among UK Customers

With smart devices becoming increasingly popular, firms creating them need a better understanding of customer motivations behind their purchases. As suggested by Rogers and other established theorists of innovation diffusion, such decisions are frequently informed by social influences and the ‘bandwagon effect’. However, these motivations have not been sufficiently studied for many products emerging in recent years including smart home technologies. This thesis sought to explore the role of social influence in shaping attitudes towards smart speaker adoption among UK customers to address this gap in knowledge. From a methodological standpoint, the posed research questions are addressed via explanatory sequential design where initial surveys of 428 UK customers are followed by 15 follow-up interviews. This allows the researcher to explore their motivations in greater depth and obtain a better understanding of the identified patterns within the quantitative data. The findings suggest that social influence has a strong moderating effect on consumer purchase intentions with peer recommendations being a major predictor of the willingness to experiment with new technologies used by close relatives, friends or other contacts. Additionally, social norms related to such products were another strong factor influencing purchase decisions. The findings suggest that the identified patterns can be generalised to other smart technologies both in the UK context and beyond.

Topic: Investigating the Impact of Government Support and Social Influences on Mobile Payment Adoption among Different Demographics in South Africa

Mobile payments form an increasing share of all financial transactions in developing countries including South Africa due to their higher convenience and ease of use. With that being said, existing research is mainly focused on the economic and technological factors stimulating the adoption of such technologies. At the same time, the role of social influences and government support of mobile payments remains relatively unstudied, which forms one of the main gaps this study seeks to address. Another ‘grey area’ includes the differences in perceptions of customers from various demographic groups in South Africa leading to the adoption of such technologies. This thesis utilised a conceptual framework based on established theoretic models including TAM and diffusion of innovation that was adjusted to the studied context. The analysis was based on quantitative surveys of 512 South African customers from different demographic groups. The results suggest that social influences and peer recommendations were a strong predictor of technology adoption among older customers while younger audiences were mainly influenced by the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Government support was seen as a crucial and statistically significant factor within the constructed model by all analysed demographic groups as an element ensuring the safety and security of new and innovative solutions.

Topic: Exploring the Impact of Perceived Usefulness and Ease of Use on E-Learning Platform Adoption among European Healthcare Professionals

Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are well-studied components of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that is used to predict users’ willingness to adopt new technologies. With that being said, these elements have been primarily explored from the customer standpoint in relation to new products or services. The global pandemic demonstrated major inefficiencies in modern educational systems including on-the-job learning and other instruments that should facilitate lifelong learning. These problems may be especially significant for healthcare professionals who generally lack time for traditional training. While the adoption of e-learning platforms available remotely on a 24/7 basis could resolve this dilemma, its rates remain relatively low across multiple countries according to past studies. This thesis sought to explore the impact of perceived usefulness and ease of use on the willingness to use these technologies among European healthcare professionals. The study adhered to an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design where 307 specialists were surveyed first with 17 follow-up interviews being organised after the end of the quantitative data processing to clarify some of the identified controversies. The data was processed using structural equation modelling (SEM) and thematic analysis correspondingly. As shown by the results, both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use had a statistically significant impact on the adoption of e-learning platforms among the surveyed and interviewed healthcare professionals.

Topic: Assessing the Mediating Role of Trust in Consumer Acceptance of Fintech Solutions: Analysis of Serbian Customers’ Perceptions

This study aims to assess the mediating role of trust in consumer acceptance of fintech solutions. Existing literature in this sphere primarily explores such factors as perceived ease of use and usefulness, convenience, and other elements related to the diffusion of innovation rather than customer psychology. At the same time, several past projects suggest that trust may play a significant role in the acceptance of fintech products since they are directly related to consumer money and budgeting. In this scenario, customers had to develop high levels of belief in and commitment to firms offering services in this sphere in order to not view such relationships as risky ones. This project explored trust as a mediating factor in the acceptance of fintech solutions. The analysis was based on a survey of 398 Serbian customers using products from this sphere offered by different European banks. The online forms measured perceived usefulness, ease of use, overall acceptance of fintech services, trust levels, and other elements based on established theoretical models in this sphere. Structural equation modelling was used to assess the relationships between these variables or the lack thereof. The findings indicate that trust has a strong mediating effect on the relationship between perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and the acceptance of fintech solutions. With that being said, its impact varied depending on respondents’ age, which informed practical recommendations related to the use of this factor in segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies.

Topic: Analysing the Effectiveness of Trialability and Observability on Consumer Acceptance of New Products: The Case of Mobile Wallet Apps

This thesis explores the effectiveness of trialability and observability use within the scope of consumer acceptance of new products such as mobile wallet apps. These innovations have become extremely popular in many countries over the years due to their convenience. However, multiple past studies suggest that their acceptance patterns were uneven across different demographic and psychographic groups, which informs the need to investigate the elements contributing to their widespread utilisation by regular users. This thesis explored two triggers to the diffusion of innovation formulated by Rogers, namely trialability and observability as potential factors influencing this process. This was achieved by using a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design combining a quantitative survey with qualitative follow-up focus group interviews providing additional depth to the quantitative findings. As shown by the results, both trialability and observability had a statistically significant impact on consumer acceptance of new products. While the generalisability of the findings may be limited due to the relatively small sample of 287 survey respondents and 16 interviewees, the findings demonstrate that marketers need to pay greater attention to the two analysed components when presenting new financial products to the general public to achieve their positive acceptance across all demographic and psychographic segments.

Topic: Exploring the Role of Feedback Mechanisms in Enhancing Technology Adoption Rates among Teams: The Experience of European Retail Workers

Technology adoption represents one of the main human resource management (HRM) challenges in modern companies. As new customer needs evolve and new business processes require more thorough performance management and monitoring, this also increases the level of digital skills required from regular team members. Established theories in the field including the Diffusion of Innovation model mainly explore the adoption of technologies from the standpoint of consumers who are potentially interested in promoted products and services. At the same time, many employees may demonstrate resistance to change since new solutions require additional training and development and may not bring direct benefits to them. This thesis explores the role of feedback mechanisms as a potential method of solving this dilemma and assumes that this form of two-way communication can facilitate the adoption of technologies among teams in the retail sector since workers feel that their needs are recognised and taken into account by the managers responsible for technology introduction. From a methodological standpoint, an explanatory sequential design was selected to answer the posed questions. A survey of 317 European retail workers identified key perceptions regarding different feedback mechanisms that were explored in greater depth during the consequent qualitative phase involving 11 interviews with team leaders. As shown by the results, regular engagement in online and offline feedback discussions had a highly positive impact on employee adoption of new technologies. With that being said, further research may be required to identify whether these relationships exist in other contexts beyond the retail industry.

Topic: Investigating the Relationship between Job Satisfaction and Technology Adoption in Remote Work Settings in the Post-COVID Era

While the global pandemic forced thousands of employees into remote work arrangements, not all of them decided to continue working in remote and flexible settings afterwards. Technology adoption problems were one of the main factors adversely affecting their performance and physical and mental well-being according to the results of multiple studies. Hence, a lot of research projects conducted in the post-COVID era tend to focus on the influence of remote work on job satisfaction. With that being said, the author of this thesis suggests the existence of an opposite relationship where the latter factor may inform the willingness to adopt new technologies required for remote work. In this scenario, employees feeling disappointed with their employers may not be willing to demonstrate the additional commitment required for realising all opportunities offered by these arrangements. As a result, employers may need to consider the factor of job satisfaction as an important factor influencing employee readiness for remote work and the adoption of new technologies required for this shift. The quantitative survey involving 450 workers from multiple industries provided the data required for answering the posed research questions. As shown by the findings, there exists a positive correlation between job satisfaction levels preceding remote work arrangements and the willingness to adopt new technologies in the process of shift to remote work. More specifically, the employees seeing this transition as an improvement of their job conditions were more proactive in acquiring the digital skills necessary to successfully complete this change. Since these patterns were recognised in multiple industries and did not demonstrate substantial variances, this implies that the findings and recommendations of this study can be generalised to the majority of organisations.

Topic: Examining Barriers to Technology Adoption among Healthcare Professionals: A Qualitative Study of Three NHS Partners

The increasing public criticisms of national healthcare systems all across the world highlight an important dilemma faced by most governments. As medical institutions struggle to provide high-quality services to constantly growing populations, they encounter resource scarcity and optimisation challenges that are difficult to resolve using their existing assets. Technology adoption is frequently seen as one of the possible solutions to this problem allowing managers to monitor performance, optimise workflows and business processes, and maintain ongoing communication between all involved stakeholders. With that being said, there exists resistance to such digital transformations found in many healthcare institutions according to multiple past studies. This thesis sought to examine key barriers to technology adoption among medical professionals. The analysis was based on qualitative interviews with 23 healthcare workers from three NHS partners including nurses, doctors, and administrative staff members. The recurring themes within their answers suggest that key barriers affecting technology adoption were time limitations, the lack of training, the lack of clarity regarding the change from established practices, and the allocation of training periods to the periods of high workloads hindering the ability of learners to fully engage with learning materials. Additionally, multiple respondents voiced concerns regarding privacy and security issues associated with the handling of sensitive patient data and associated legal responsibilities. The findings imply that the implementation of new technologies among healthcare workers has to take into account existing resource limitations to minimise potential resistance to change, which may be generalised to all healthcare institutions.

Author

  • phd_writer_11

    William earned his doctorate in management. He has ten years of experience as an academic writer, specialising in subjects including Business, Human Resources, Management and Risk Management.

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