Differential Effects of Customers’ Regulatory Fit on Trust, Perceived Value, and M-Commerce Use among Developing and Developed Countries

Abstract

Despite promising growth, mobile commerce (m-commerce) still represents only a small proportion of the world's total e-commerce market. The research behind this article moves away from the predominantly single-country (typically developed) and utilitarian-focused market scope of past research to examine and provide a more nuanced understanding of customers’ motivations, whether utilitarian or hedonic, for using m-commerce across six countries. The six-country context, with data collected from 1,183 m-commerce users, offers a unique opportunity to advance mobile-retailing literature by comparing customers’ value perceptions, trust, and m-commerce use across disparate national markets. By treating motivations as conditions activated by individuals’ chronic regulatory orientations, our results show that hedonic motivation plays a more significant role in influencing customers’ value perceptions and trust for those who are promotion oriented (Australia and the United States), whereas utilitarian motivation plays a more important role for those who are prevention oriented (Bangladesh and Vietnam). Finally, both hedonic and utilitarian motivations play an important role in influencing customers’ value perceptions and trust for those who are moderately promotion and prevention oriented (India and Pakistan). These results offer insights to mobile retailers operating internationally in their decisions to standardize or adapt the mobile-shopping environment to deliver the most valuable, trustworthy, and engaging solutions to customers.