Deciphering the resistance behaviours towards mobile commerce applications: A Mobile Commerce Applications Resistance Theory (MOCART)

Abstract

Over the last decade, mobile commerce (m-commerce) has disrupted the existing business industries via various m-commerce applications. Although the popularity of m-commerce applications such as mobile payment and mobile shopping has been growing substantially, it was reported that some mobile users are still resisting m-commerce applications on a worldwide basis. To explain the multifaceted resistance behaviours of mobile users (i.e., rejection, postponement, or opposition) towards m-commerce applications, this study builds a holistic framework named the M-Commerce Applications Resistance Theory (MOCART) by extending the Innovation Resistance Theory (comprises passive innovation resistance and active innovation resistance) with mobile users' information privacy concerns and mobile technostress. Subsequently, the MOCART is empirically verified with 1050 responses collected through a quota sampling technique. The empirical results support the rigorously established MOCART, suggesting that mobile users’ information privacy concerns, mobile technostress, and passive innovation resistance are the antecedents of active innovation resistance, which drives all three types of resistance behaviour towards m-commerce applications. Considering this, several crucial theoretical and practical implications of the MOCART are discussed.