The adoption of a mobile parking service: Instrumentality and expressiveness

This paper applies an extended model based upon the theory of planned behavior to explain the adoption of mobile parking services among a group of users having some experience with the service. Because mobile parking services are instrumental services used to pay for car parking, we assume that instrumental motives of usefulness dominate the influence on users' intentions to use the services. In addition, it is likely that facilitation is also an important determinant of intentions to use instrumental services. Facilitation is included in the model through the concept of perceived behavioral control. A survey of 459 trial parking service users is conducted. The results show that the extended theory of planned behavior shows good fit and explanatory power. Instrumental usefulness is a significant determinant of intention to use the services, but expressiveness is found to be equally important. This is rather surprising given the instrumental nature of the mobile parking services. Usefulness is determined by instrumentality, but also through expressiveness and ease of use indirectly. Subjective norms do not influence intentions and neither does perceived behavioral control. Thus, adopters do not perceive this as a service that is difficult or needs considerable facilitation beyond what is currently offered. Consistent with previous studies of mobile service adoption, the complexity of the model lies in the motivational process of adopters wherein elements of expressiveness and derived motives are found at least as important as purely instrumental extrinsic motives. These findings may be used by service developers, facilitators and operators to design, distribute and communicate new mobile data services that meet the demand side adoption requirements of end users.