Mobile Service Quality Research Articles

Research on user needs for mobile information services in Chinese university libraries

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the service demand of existing users and potential users for mobile information services provided by university libraries in China. The primary objective is to explore the impact of user experience on user needs, which is conducted by a comparison between two user groups over their needs from three aspects – service function, service mode and information content. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 353 library users from ten Chinese universities via questionnaires. Based on the user needs model, three dimensions of user needs were established for mobile information services and 26 measurement items were generated through a review of the literature. Furthermore, based on frequency analysis, independent samples t-test and the calculation of need rate, the demand differences in mobile information services between existing and potential users were explored. Findings Significant differences existed in the needs for service functions and service modes of mobile information services between existing users and potential users. Existing users cared more about such characteristics as intelligence, personalization and the variety of mobile services. Potential users, in contrast, concerned themselves more with the usability of mobile services and similarity to traditional information services. These two user groups showed little difference in the needs for information content, as they both have strict requirements for specialty, richness in and quality of information resources in mobile network environments. Originality/value Previous research on user needs for mobile libraries services has been primarily conducted from the perspectives of existing users. This study, however, compared the needs of existing and potential users based on their previous experiences, which can help libraries to know better what their users need and improve the quality of mobile information services to meet those needs. This can also make existing users more willing to use the services and cultivate the usage habits of potential users at the same time.

Adkintun Mobile: Study of Relation between QoS and QoE in Mobile Networks

With the increase in use of smartphones and mobile data plans, currently being one of the main sources of Internet traffic. Today there is a wide range of services, with millions of applications available to users. Software is in constant development, improving to better suit user requirements. It is important to monitor the quality of service and the quality of experience to understand how the users perceive the services provided. Such is the motivation behind the Adkintun Mobile project, attempting to understand mobile quality of service through passive monitoring. Here we explain a new phase of our project to add a way to collect QoE from users.

Examining the key dimensions of mobile banking service quality: an exploratory study

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the key dimensions of mobile banking (m-banking) service quality. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employ the critical incident technique to unveil the key dimensions of m-banking service quality as perceived by m-banking customers, and to identify critical satisfiers/dissatisfiers among the identified dimensions. Findings – The analysis reveals a total of 17 dimensions of m-banking service quality: m-banking application quality (content, accuracy, ease of use, speed, aesthetics, security, diverse mobile application service features, and mobile convenience), and m-banking customer service quality (reliability, responsiveness, competence, courtesy, credibility, access, communication, understanding the customer, and continuous improvement). Of these, five dimensions, such as mobile convenience, accuracy, diverse mobile application service features, ease of use, and continuous improvement, are considered as the main sources of customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction. Practical implications – M-bankers, based on the identified 17 dimensions, can develop a comprehensive service quality management system, which helps them identify and overcome key obstacles to the delivery of high quality m-banking customer services. Originality/value – This study focusses on uncovering the key dimensions of m-banking service quality and their associated sub-dimensions specific to the context of m-banking. Theoretically, the identified dimensions and their related sub-items can serve as building blocks for further research in customer relationship management in m-banking.

English

Mobile or outreach type of voluntary counseling and testing approach is a useful way to reach high risk groups and rural population that are far away from facility based voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) service. Little has been done to assess the quality of mobile VCT services in Ethiopia. This study aims to assess the quality of mobile VCT services and client satisfaction in the cities of Addis Ababa and Adama. This study used both qualitative and quantitative study designs. Structured questionnaire was administered to 279 client respondents. The qualitative data was analyzed by thematic areas, and the quantitative data was analyzed and interpreted by using statistical packages for social sciences (SPSS) package of version 13.0. Overall service satisfaction of the clients was very high in this study. The competence of the counselors was good. Short duration of counseling time, inconvenience of counseling rooms, high number of clients seen by the counselors amongst other factors were findings from the qualitative study that can affect the quality of the mobile VCT services.  To improve the promotional activities, the referral linkages and the feedback problem, there should be work integration with government health institutions, non-governmental organization (NGOs) and kebele (the smallest administrative unit) HIV focal persons. Key words: Quality, satisfaction, quality of VCT counselors, providers, client, quality of VCT site,

Optimizing the Lifetime of Sensor Networks with Uncontrollable Mobile Sinks and QoS Constraints

In past literature, it has been demonstrated that the use of mobile sinks (MSs) increases dramatically the lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In applications where the MSs are humans, animals, or transportation systems, the mobility of the MSs is often uncontrollable and could also be random and unpredictable. This implies the necessity of algorithms tailored to handle uncertainty on the MS mobility. In this article, we define the lifetime optimization of a WSN in the presence of uncontrollable sink mobility and Quality of Service (QoS) constraints. After defining an ideal scheme (called Oracle ) which provably maximizes network lifetime, we present a novel Swarm-Intelligence-based Sensor Selection Algorithm (SISSA), which optimizes network lifetime and meets predefined QoS constraints. Then we mathematically analyze SISSA and derive analytical bounds on energy consumption, number of messages exchanged, and convergence time. The algorithm is experimentally evaluated on practical experimental setups, and its performances are compared to that by the optimal Oracle scheme, as well as with the IEEE 802.15.4 MAC and TDMA schemes. Results conclude that SISSA provides on the average the 56% of the lifetime provided by Oracle and outperforms IEEE 802.15.4 and TDMA in terms of yielded network lifetime.

Development of a scale to measure the quality of mobile location-based services

Mobile location-based service (m-LBS) presents attractive business opportunities for various companies. Recent improvements of technologies have resulted in a dramatic growth of m-LBSs. However, development of scales for evaluating the m-LBS quality has scarcely been addressed. This study aims to develop a new scale applicable to evaluating m-LBS quality. The scale was qualitatively designed at first, and the designed scale was assessed with a total number of 281 responded survey data. As a result, an m-LBS quality scale was developed, which consists of 9 quality dimensions and 29 measurement items. The distinctive characteristic of m-LBS is captured by a newly defined dimension called “localization” and its three measurement items (namely organization, update, and inclusiveness). The proposed scale was shown to be statistically reliable and valid. The results of this study would significantly contribute to providing a valid scale for use in measuring the m-LBS quality.

Service Quality Parameters for Mobile Government Services in India

Information and communications technology (ICT)-based government service delivery in India is rapidly achieving a stage of maturity. With the increasing teledensity and the penetration of mobile devices, the Indian central and state governments have started to offer government services over mobile devices. As more and more government services are offered over mobile phones, it is important to gain an understanding of parameters determining the quality of mobile government services. The identification of service quality parameters will help stakeholders appropriately prioritize and position mobile-based government service delivery. This article presents the findings of an exploratory study using an online survey of Indian e-government experts on the service quality parameters for m-government in India. The study aims to identify and prioritize the service quality parameters based on similar parameters identified by researchers for e-government and mobile service quality.

Analysis of telecom service quality factors with analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy extent analysis: a case of public sector unit

The introduction of foreign direct investments (FDI) in the Indian telecom sector has resulted in increased competition among the telecom service providers. Accordingly, the service providers have changed their attention from profit earning to customer satisfaction. Instead of getting new customers, the service providers have become interested in retaining their existing customers. They have realised that satisfied customers improved an organisation's image in the market. Thus, the main research objective of the study is to discuss the service quality of a public sector unit (PSU) having important service attributes. This study was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, the important telecom dimensions were identified. In the second stage, these attributes were prioritised using experts' choice and fuzzy extent analysis. In the third stage, the model was tested on the PSU customers using factor analysis and regression. The results showed that grievance handling was given the highest priority compared to the other quality attributes. This research is useful for telecom service providers, especially those who focused on service quality. To the best of our knowledge, the quality of mobile, wireline and broadband services has been rarely investigated using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy extent analysis.

Cluster-Based Resource Allocation for Spectrum-Sharing Femtocell Networks

Femtocells in two-tier femto-macro networks can enhance indoor coverage and improve overall network performance. Macro networks may share spectrum with overlaid femtocells so as to improve spectral efficiency. However, the deployment of femtocells also brings co-tier and cross-tier interferences, which will significantly degrade system performance. In order to solve this problem efficiently, we propose a distributed scheme to manage wireless resources in this heterogeneous networks. The feasible solution can be obtained by dividing the problem into two sub-problems. First, we propose a femtocells clustering scheme, which uses a mathematical modeling idea based on LINGO, an optimization software that can solve the joint clustering problem for the femtocell access points (FAPs). The proposed branch-and-bound algorithm and the simplex algorithm are used jointly to find the optimal solution by LINGO. The optimality of the proposed clustering algorithm is verified both theoretically and through simulations where the comparison with other algorithms is made. Second, a novel algorithm is proposed to allocate sub-channels to the femtocell users (FUEs). Compared with other related schemes, the proposed channel-allocation algorithm can reduce the interference more effectively and achieve higher data-rate fairness among FUEs. Specifically, according to the situation that the FUEs move in the room, the FUE mobility model is proposed to predict the change tendency of path loss values of the FUEs, which can guarantee the mobile service quality and improve system capacity effectively. Finally, the power of the FAPs is adjusted dynamically through setting the interference threshold to further improve the performance of the system.

여행상품의 모바일정보서비스품질에 따른 정보획득실패와 미래행동 구조관계 연구

This study clarified the influencing relation that travel product mobile information service quality affects the variables. A total of 633 people data collected were utilized for analysis of structural equation. Integrated structure relation of proposed model has been verified. As a result of data analysis, structure relation model of future behavior, satisfaction and information acquisition failure according to travel product mobile information service quality showed several important results. Mobile information service quality factors such as contents, feedback and personalization showed significant(-) effects on information acquisition failure, but exploration showed no significant effects on information acquisition failure. In addition, mobile information service quality factors such as contents and personalization showed significant (+) effects on tourism information satisfaction.

A Rewarding Framework for Network Resource Sharing in Co-Channel Hybrid Access Femtocell Networks

With the explosive growth in mobile data traffic, femtocell technology is regarded as the most effective way to enhance the mobile service quality and system capacity of cellular networks. However, the major problem with femtocell deployment is finding an appropriate access control mode that mobile operators and users are willing to adopt. Among the various kinds of access control modes, the hybrid access mode is considered the most promising because it allows femtocells to give preferential access to femtocell owners, while other public users can only access femtocells with certain restrictions. Because all femtocell owners are selfish, how to provide sufficient incentives so that they will share their femtocell resources is a challenging issue. To address the problem, we propose an economic framework for mobile operator and femtocell users based on game theoretical analysis. We also exploit the concept of revenue sharing, which provides a positive cycle to sustain the femtocell service. In the framework, a femtocell game is formulated where the femtocell owners determine the proportion of femtocell resources they will share with public users, while the operator maximizes its benefit by setting the ratio of the revenue distributed to femtocell owners. We analyze the existence and uniqueness of the Nash Equilibrium of the game. The results of extensive simulations show that the proposed framework maximizes the operator’s benefit and satisfies the users’ service requirements.

지각된 모바일서비스품질과 관계품질

본 연구에서는 유용성, 용이성, 쾌락성, 사회성 등 모바일서비스품질차원이 만족과 신뢰에 미치는 영향을 확인하고, 또한 만족, 신뢰, 몰입 등의 관계품질 구성개념과 이용의도 간에는 어떠한 인과관계를 형성하는가를 검증하였다. 이를 위해 모바일서비스 이용자를 대상으로 표본을 수집하였고, 수집된 자료는 SPSS 20.0 및 AMOS 16.00 통계패키지를 이용하여 제기된 연구가설을 검증하였다. 분석결과 첫째, 모바일서비스품질차원과 만족 관계에서 쾌락성을 제외하고 나머지 구성차원은 유의하였다. 둘째, 모바일서비스품질차원과 신뢰 관계에서 사회성만이 유의한 것으로 확인되었다. 셋째, 만족과 몰입 관계, 신뢰와 몰입 관계 및 몰입과 이용의도 관계는 유의한 반면, 만족과 신뢰 관계와 신뢰와 이용의도 관계는 유의하지 않았다. 따라서 모바일서비스기업의 마케터는 모바일서비스 이용자에게 우수한 모바일서비스를 제공함으로써 서비스에 대한 만족과 신뢰를 높이고, 또한 만족한 고객이 신뢰와 몰입을 유도함으로써 궁극적으로 이용의도를 높일 수 있도록 적합한 마케팅전략을 제시해야할 것이다. The purpose of this study is to identifies the effects of service quality factors on satisfaction and trust, and then verifies the causal relations among satisfaction, trust, commitment and using intention in mobile service setting. A survey was conducted to collect the data with consumers who had the actual using experience about mobile services. Analysis of structural equation modeling with SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 16.0 were performed to test the research hypothesis. The result of the study as follows: First, it was found to difference in relationship between dimensions of mobile service quality and satisfaction except for the pleasure. Second, the sociality was found to significant path coefficients in relationships with trust. Third, satisfaction and trust have influence on commitment and commitment has effects on using intention, but there had no significant path coefficients between satisfaction and trust, and then both satisfaction and trust were not found to significant path coefficients in relationship with using intention. Therefore, Marketers of mobile service corporate have to give excellent service quality to consumers who have using their mobile service for increase of using intention through build up trust and commitment by consumers who satisfied.

Towards a quality model of technical aspects for mobile learning services: An empirical investigation

Quality issues are commonly reported following the development of mobile learning applications. To evaluate and increase the chance of the successful development of new mobile learning products, the adoption of a complete and well-defined set of technical quality aspects for mobile learning development and their adoption in the education environment are proposed. This work describes a model that captures most abstract and generic technical aspects of mobile learning service quality, including availability, fast response times, flexibility, scalability, usability, maintainability, functionality, functionality, reliability, connectivity, performance, user interface and security. A set of technical quality aspects was developed following a literature study focussing on standards and guidelines for learning and mobile application software quality. The presented case studies point to a set of contextual technical quality factors that influence the choice of mobile learning application. The findings also indicate that there are causal relationships between learner satisfaction and the overall proposed model technical quality aspects. The model has a positive impact on overall learning process outcomes by evaluating the technical aspects while maintaining the quality of mobile learning delivered. The model components purportedly affect learning outcomes by assessing and improving the acceptability to stakeholders of the technical aspects of mobile learning.

An Exploratory Study on Service Quality Measurement of the Fourth Generation Mobile Telecommunication: The Case of the Korean Market

Now, the Korean mobile communication market already reached full growth. In this situation, mobile communication companies are constantly trying to find ways to differentiate their services. But it was quite difficult. The only thing that differentiates their service is quality. This study aims to examine the impact of service quality and satisfaction on continuous use intention in the Korean mobile telecommunication context. More specifically, the objectives of the present study are to investigate how service quality and satisfaction influence directly continuous use intention of LTE, and what is the most significant constructing factor of service quality as antecedents of a subscriber's satisfaction and continuous use intention of LTE. Though studies measuring service quality mainly used SERVQUAL and SERVPERF, studies considering the uniqueness of mobile communication market were rare. There were few studies that measured the quality of Korean mobile communication service. But they didn't reflect the distinctiveness of the market. We were able to find critical common variables that can be applied to Korean mobile communication market from prior research. We suggested billing system, device, call quality, corporate image, speed, customer support and bonus system as core variables of service quality. Afterwards, we conducted a questionnaire survey of college students mainly in their twenties. As a result, customer support, corporate image, and speed among service quality factor presented in this paper significantly influenced customer satisfaction. Also, customer satisfaction has a strong relationship with continuous use intention.

Pengaruh Kualitas Layanan Mobile Banking (M-Banking) Terhadap Kepuasan Nasabah di Indonesia

The research aim was to assess the influence of the service quality of mobile banking (m-banking) against customer satisfaction at the greatest banks in Indonesia. Elements of the quality of mobile banking services (m-banking) were speed, security, accuracy, and trust. The population of this study was bank customers from eight of the greatest bank in Indonesia -- Bank Mandiri, Bank BRI, Bank BCA, Bank BNI, Bank CIMB Niaga, Bank Danamon, Bank Permata, and Bank Panin -- who used mobile banking which totaled 19.9 million customers with the size of the sample being 400 respondents. The sampling method used nonprobability sampling by incidental sampling. The results by using a structural equation modeling (SEM) found significant influences between service quality of mobile banking (m-banking) partially and simultaneously to customer satisfaction.

User Purpose Analysis for Mobile Banking Service

Abstract In recent years, because of the increasing penetration of mobile phones, society has become concerned with mobile transaction service quality. This study aimed to promote the use of mobile transaction services. Thus, the E-S-QUAL (E-Core Service Quality) proposed by Parasuraman et al. and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) developed by Bhattacherjee and Sanford were combined to study the impact on information technology acceptance, as well as to summarize 13 mobile banking service items affecting mobile banking transactions, functional programs, and accessibility programs. Furthermore, this study designed a dependency questionnaire using Analytic Network Process (ANP) based on the defined goals, criteria, subcriteria, and program dependencies. Five experts from the financial industry and academia with more than eight years of working experience were invited to compute the weights and find the optimum program accordingly. This study found that the weights of the functional programs were higher than the weights of the accessible programs; therefore, users could be convinced of the credibility and persuasiveness of mobile financial services by strengthening the mobile banking service items, thus promoting individuals’ willingness for the sustained use of mobile banking transaction services. Suggestions were proposed for functional programs that could be provided to the banking industry as a basis for decision making regarding service systems and service quality enhancement, thus further boosting user confidence in the transaction platforms of mobile banking systems.

SMART for mobile health: A study of scheduling algorithms in full-IP mobile networks

As a joint initiative of WHO and ITU, mHealth is becoming a feasible tool to offer data-intensive healthcare services online. In general, each kind of mHealth application has user-specific service-quality requirements that could be satisfied in the cost of bandwidth overconsumption. In any mobile network, bandwidth overconsumption is selfishly competing with limited radio resources. This phenomenon is further magnified by the “best-effort” service pattern inherited from IP networking, and the influence from interference, fading, and other mobility effects on unreliable radio channels. To enrich mHealth applications, we propose a Service-Mapping Adaptive Radio Transmission (SMART) scheduling algorithm, in which system parameters (QCI, CQI, MCS in AMC, etc.) are employed to enable “better than best effort” packet-switching services in full-IP mobile networks (e.g. LTE/LTE-Advanced). In this proposal, the designed scheduling metric is a self-adaptive mechanism that can combine mobile service-quality inspection and transmission pattern recognition dynamically. System-level simulation experiments demonstrate that the proposal can obtain approximately 31.25 percent gain on average, in contrast to existing solutions. Additionally, the runtime complexity of this solution is lowered to O(K log K), where K is the number of mHealth users within a cell.

M-S-QUAL: Mobile service quality measurement

The proliferation of wireless technologies means that consumers are increasingly coming into contact with a diverse range of mobile services. Mobile service providers seeking to deliver a superior service must understand how consumers perceive these services. Although many instruments, such as SERVQUAL and E-S-QUAL, are available to measure service quality in general, to date there has been no instrument specifically designed to measure mobile service quality. Given the many types of mobile services available, our aim in this study was to ascertain the essential characteristics of such services by conceptualizing, constructing, refining, and testing a multiple-item scale, M-S-QUAL, designed to measure service quality in the mobile environment. According to Hinkin’s guidelines on scale development, the items in our scale were generated by following a deductive approach based on a theoretical foundation. There are two parts of M-S-QUAL, which assess m-commerce shopping experiences for virtual and physical products respectively. Thus, the scale developed in this study was designed to assess m-commerce shopping experiences for both virtual and physical products. We propose and empirical test a multidimensional model of M-S-QUAL using a sample of 578 Internet respondents. Through a five-step validation, the M-S-QUAL construction concluded with five factors (contact, responsiveness, fulfillment, privacy and efficiency) for the supporting services in the process of virtual product shopping and four factors (contact, responsiveness, fulfillment and efficiency) for the supporting services in the process of physical product shopping. These two aspects of M-S-QUAL demonstrate good psychometric properties, as confirmed by exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and reliability and validity tests. The findings of this study will help mobile service providers to assess the quality of their services and assist researchers in developing mobile service quality theories.

Role of transfer-based and performance-based cues on initial trust in mobile shopping services: a cross-environment perspective

Building initial trust with consumers is critical for e-retailers. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model, this study examines the factors affecting initial trust in mobile shopping services by focusing on transfer-based and performance-based trust building mechanisms in a web-mobile services extension context. A developed research model reflecting the above two mechanisms is empirically tested on data collected from 192 undergraduate students who were web-shopping users of a famous business-to-consumer retailer in China. The results indicate that transfer-based cues including trust in web shopping services and functional consistency, in combination with performance-based cues including mobile information quality and mobile service quality, significantly affect initial trust in mobile shopping services. In addition, mobile information quality had a stronger, while mobile service quality had a weaker impact on initial trust in mobile shopping services when the consumer had a low level of self-efficacy for change. However, the moderation effects of user involvement were not significant.

Understanding Mobile Library Apps Continuance Usage in China: A Theoretical Framework and Empirical Study

AbstractWith the pervasiveness of mobile applications (apps), many Chinese libraries have begun to use apps to provide mobile services to users. Although many mobile library (m-library) apps have a high-downloaded rate in the App store, the rate of users continuing to use them remains extremely low, and the acceptance-discontinuance anomaly phenomenon (i.e., users discontinue using a m-library app after initially accepting it) is a common occurrence in China. This study develops an integrated model designed to explain and predict users’ continued usage of m-library apps based on the expectation confirmation model of information system continuance (ECM-ISC) and the theory of information system success, It incorporates habit, as a moderating variable of continuance intention and behaviour, into the model. Empirical data was collected from 396 users who had prior experience with m-library apps and was tested against the proposed research model using structural equation modelling. The results demonstrated that user perceived usefulness, expectation confirmation and satisfaction are important parts of the formation of m-library apps continuance usage. Furthermore, the three components of the information system success model, system quality, information quality and service quality, also have significant impacts on user confirmation and ultimately affect continuance usage. And the negative influence of habit on continuance intention and behaviour has been supported. The study will be useful for Chinese libraries to better understand users’ continuance usage behaviour and service demands, and in turn to optimize the function of apps and improve the quality of mobile services.