The Effects of Utilitarian and Hedonic Attributes on Voluntary Media Selection: The Case of Messaging Tools
2010; Volume: 19; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1941-6679
AutoresSeung Lee, Dahui Li, Patricia A. Merrier,
Tópico(s)Knowledge Management and Sharing
ResumoINTRODUCTION The wide diffusion of Internet and information and communication technologies (ICT) has created an unprecedented phenomenon, one in which communication media are served individually with their distinct functions. A variety of communication media are available and accessible to organizational employees, college students, and home computer users (D'Ambra et al., 1998; van den Hooff, 2005; Watson-Manheim and Belanger 2007). Depending on their preferences and task characteristics, people choose media from an array of ICT options instead of being limited to a single communication medium. For example, people at work use a variety of ICT communication media for their collaborations, coordination, knowledge sharing, social networking, and other interpersonal communications (D'Ambra et al., 1998; Mattson & Barnes, 2007; van den Hooff, 2005; Watson-Manheim & Belanger, 2007). Included among the possible choices are bulletin boards, online video, social networking sites, podcasting, wikis, blogs, email, and cell phones. Even today's business cards offer a glimpse into how business professionals have embraced previously atypical contacts such as AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), MSN, and ICQ to supplement conventional information such as telephone numbers, fax numbers, and email addresses. People truly are living in an era of multifaceted communication. They fully utilize the different content and contextual modes supported by the various types of communication media (Watson-Manheim & Belanger, 2007). But, what motivates them to choose specific media for their social and work life? Why do they prefer one medium to another to meet a specific communication need? This study is centered on finding answers to these questions, following the emerging interest in this topic which has been relatively neglected by previous studies (Watson-Manheim & Belanger, 2007). The research question in this study falls in media choice literature, which answers how, why, and when individuals select different communication media (Carlson & Zmud, 1998; Carlson & Davis, 1999; Kock 2004; Watson-Manheim & Belanger 2007). In this paper, we adopt the trait approach in the media selection literature (Carlson & Davis, 1998) and develop a utility model (Kraut et al., 1998) to explain an individual's selection of media in the voluntary context, instead of the workplace or business context. To do that, media attributes were categorized as utilitarian and hedonic based on the marketing studies (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000; Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982, Troy et al., 2009) to conceptualize how users choose media based on two sets of attributes (utilitarian and hedonic). An investigation of these two attributes or dimensions contributes to media selection and ICT literature with a novel conceptualization of media traits. To our knowledge, previous media selection studies have not conceptualized media attributes as utilitarian and hedonic. There are some ICT studies (e.g., Carlson & Davis, 1998) that have examined to some extent the role of different examples of utilitarian attributes in media selection such as information quality and access quality. The utilitarian attribute, however, has never been studied explicitly and measured directly. The same is true for the hedonic attribute of a medium, although previous research on user experience has adopted other terms (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006), such as enjoyment (Serenko, Bontis, & Detlor, 2007), flow (Sanchez-Franco, 2006), entertaining (Srivastava, 2005), playfulness (Hsu & Chiu, 2004), and pleasure (Hedman & Sharafi, 2004). An integration of the two dimensions may provide valuable insights to both researchers and communications technology providers. For example, the two dimensions may help categorize media into different groups and positions. Technology providers may develop more effective pricing and marketing mechanisms for communication technologies because marketing literature has found that products with a higher level of hedonic attributes have advantages over those with a higher level of utilitarian attributes in terms of price premium and sales promotion (e. …
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