Consumers’ adoption of mobile payment platform: An empirical study of Chinese consumers

Consumers’ adoption of mobile payment platform: An empirical

study of Chinese consumers

University of Groningen Newcastle University

Faculty of Economics and Business Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

MSc: Advanced International Business Management and Marketing

Tianhe Hao

S3056384 160747771

Supervisor RuG: Prof. dr. H.J. (Rian) Drogendijk Supervisor NU: Dr Ana Javornik

Word Count: 13994 (main text)

Abstract

Technological innovation is continuously changing the business model and people's way of life. With the information technology promoting the way to improve the current payment methods and the popularity of mobile terminals, more and more people are willing to accept mobile payment services. In China, the rapid development of mobile payment platform, such as Alipay wallet, makes mobile service well known. This paper mainly studies the

influencing factors of consumers' willingness to adopt mobile payment platform in China, while previous researchers primarily targeted in developed countries. So China is an

international context in this paper. According to previous studies, the perceived value can be used as a basic theory to study the adoption of mobile payment platform. Based on the theory of perceived value (Sheth et al. ,1991; Zeithaml,1988, Sweeney and Soutar,2001), this paper holds that the factors affecting the adoption of mobile payment platform are the following two levels. First, functional value, social value, and situational value under perceived value. Second, perceived monetary value and perceived safety under functional value will affect consumer’s willingness to adopt; Subjective norms, trend participation, personal innovation under social value will affect consumer’s willingness to adopt; Perceived convenience and perceived mobility under situational value will affect consumer’s willingness to adopt.

For the established theoretical model, the empirical methods are employed. The conceptual model of the user intention is established by using the perceived value. After the data is analyzed, the conclusion of the model is obtained. In China, perceived monetary value, subjective norms, personal innovation, perceived mobility, and convenience would positively affect consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform. Perceived safety and trend participation does not have a positive impact on consumer’s willingness. Besides, this study will assist the mobile payment companies in implementing appropriate business models and service strategies when they carry out business in China.

Acknowledgement

From essay topic selection to the collection of information, writing to revising. This is a period that I have experienced joy, noisiness, anguish, and perplexity. My mood is so complicated during the writing of the essay. Today, with the final draft of this dissertation, complicated feelings disappear, and I feel even a little sense of accomplishment.

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me during the writing of this thesis.

My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my mentor professor Drogendijk. Her easy-going enthusiasm, rigorous scholarship. In chatting, she always encourages me like a close friend, and she always asks me strictly in professional writing and wording. Starting from the selection of the title and the finalization of the essay, until the final piece is revised and polished, professor Drogendijk has always given me a profound and careful guidance, to help me to develop research ideas, cautious call, warm encouragement. It is professor

Drogendijk’s selfless help and enthusiasm to encourage my graduation thesis can be completed.

Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my another mentor Doctor Javornik. Although she is usually busy, she also gave my graduation thesis the same great support. Doctor Javornik gave me her valuable advice on the topic selection, structure, content and even the format of the essay writing. Her help made me take another step in the creation of my essay.

Table of content

2.2.1. Perceived monetary value ... 10

2.2.2. Perceived safety ... 11 2.3. Social value ... 12 2.3.1. Subjective norms ... 14 2.3.2. Trend participation ... 15 2.3.3. Personal innovation ... 16 2.4. situational value ... 17 2.4.1. Perceived mobility ... 18 2.4.2. Perceived convenience ... 19 3. Research methods ... 21

3.1. Data collection procedure ... 21

3.2. Measurements ... 22

3.2.1. Perceived monetary value ... 22

3.2.2. Perceived safety ... 23 3.2.3. Subjective norms ... 23 3.2.4. Trend participation ... 23 3.2.5. Personal innovation ... 24 3.2.6. Perceived convenience ... 24 3.2.7. Perceived mobility ... 24

3.2.8. Dependent variable — Consumer’s willingness ... 25

3.2.9 Control variables ... 25

4. Data analysis and results ... 25

4.1. Demographic analysis ... 26

4.2. Reliability and validity analysis ... 27

4.3. Hypothesis testing ... 31

5.Discussion and Implications ... 34

5.1 Functional value perspective ... 34

5.2 Social value perspective ... 35

5.3 Situational value perspective ... 36

5.4 implications ... 37

6. Limitation and future research ... 38

7. Conclusion ... 39

References: ... 41

Appendix A: Comparison of mobile payments between China and the U.S. ... 49

Appendix B: Co-Plot Map on Seven Cultural Orientations ... 50

1. Introduction

Technological innovation is continuously changing the business model, and people's way of life. With the information technology to promote the way to improve the monetary payment and smartphones, tablet PCs and other mobile terminals become accessible, more and more people adopt mobile payment services. Mobile payments in Japan, South Korea and some developed countries in Europe and America have been accepted and used by many people. Besides, the development in China is also accelerating step by step.

Kim et al. (2007) pointed out that Mobile Internet (M-Internet) is an essential premise for rapid developing of Mobile Commerce. Consumers and users that engage in Mobile commerce can be regarded as separate individuals who act as technology accepters and service users. More specifically, they adopt and use mobile payment platform for personal reasons.

According to Financial Access Initiative (2009), Mobile payment platform grew up in developed countries, and it was deployed as a way to extend financial services of the bank. For example, based on the research of European Payment Council in 2016, Mobile payments are becoming an essential instrument for Payment Service Providers (PSPs), which enable them to achieve new growth opportunities. Examples of mobile payment platform in

Among all types of E-commerce, Alipay is a third-party online payment system, launched in 2004. Users create an account on which to deposit money in a prepay way; with this account, consumers are allowed to buy from sellers who also offer their products through this online payment system (Yuan et al., 2016). Moreover, when making a payment for their online shopping, consumers are allowed to choose to pay either by an online bank or Alipay, yet, most consumers would prefer Alipay (Boden,2016). The reason is that as a third-party payment platform, Alipay assumes a role of watchdog by securing transactions between sellers and buyers. For consumers who like online shopping, their accounts could be

connected to their Alipay account (Zhang,2013). At the checkout of the purchase, the money to be paid will be debited from buyers’ accounts and be preserved by Alipay before

transferring to sellers’ accounts, until goods are delivered and confirmed by customers (Chen, 2014). Alipay and their business model rest on Alipay’s safety mechanism and increasing online shopping craze in China. Therefore, many people deposit more money into their Alipay accounts. By doing so, it generates to Alipay a large liquid cash, which Alipay in turn deposits in banks to earn plenty of interests. Also because of the lead time between buyer’s ordering and goods confirmation, Alipay can extend the time of the deposits in banks to earn more benefits. Owing to the growing number of users of Alipay, many other online shopping sites initiatives start to collaborate with Alipay, which in turn enables them to earn handling fees whenever consumers choose to pay by it (Zhang, 2013).

The rapid development of the mobile payment platform in developed countries is mainly driven by the perceived value (Sweeney and Soutar,2001; Nana Mbinkeu,2013). Researchers focused on functional value, social value, situational value, cognitive value, and emotional value (Sheth et al. ,1991). However, due to the reason that mobile payment platform is just becoming prevalence in China, there is not too much research on the mobile payment platform in China. Furthermore, the studies of mobile payment platform in China based on perceived value theory are even less. Alongside this, cultural differences could enable individual consumers from different countries behave differently. Schwartz (2009) validated different culture in the world into seven different cultural orientations. Besides, he also made a Co-plot map of 76 states on Seven Cultural Orientation (see Appendix B), which shows that culture in China is more hierarchy while developed countries in Europe are more

institutional differences. For example, according to the research of China Internet

Information Center in 2012, the primary problem for people give up using mobile payment platform is they perceive mobile payment is less safe than making payment on computers. In this context, we hope to use the theoretical basis and through empirical research to Alipay wallet users as the survey object, analyze their willingness to accept the mobile payment platform, and analyze the impact of various factors.

In this paper, we mainly study the users of the mobile payment platform, and the factors influence users to adopt the mobile payment platform, further, we use this as a basis to establish a theoretical model, that is, the willingness to use the mobile payment platform model. According to the collected questionnaires, we can understand the impact of factors of the mobile payment platform could affect consumers’ intentions. This paper chooses Alipay as a specific research object to study, primarily because of some of its characteristics: (1) Alipay can be used as a representative of the mobile payment platform in China, it is a relatively mature platform software. (2) its popularity is high, a large number of users to facilitate the collection of samples in this article.

The primary research content of this paper is based on the adoption model of the willingness to use. Section 2 review and analysis the theoretical background of our study, emphasizing on perceived value and sub-items under perceived value and hypothesis. Section 3 presents the conceptual model and research methods. Section 4 provides the results of data analysis. Section 5 discusses the results and show some implication for the company. Section 6 follows the limitations and future research of the study. Section 7 draws some conclusions.

2. literature review

2.1. Perceived value

many different terms to describe the values. Some basic concepts are consumption value, acquisition and transaction value, service value, customer value, consumer value and perceived value. From the utilitarian point of view, consumer perceived value includes the value of the product and the value of the transaction (Kim et al., 2007). So far, academic researchers have not agreed on the concept of consumer perceived value. They believe that the value is not only about the functional value this one aspect, so different researchers measure the value in their measurements. This article summarizes on the existing concept of perceived value as follows.

Sheth et al. (1991) argued that perceived value is a multidimensional concept. Defining only perceived value as quality or price will make the perceived value too sparse and not

conducive to the development of perceived value theory. He interprets the perceived value as comprised by function value, social value, emotional value, cognitive value and situational value. And either one or all of the five aspects may affect the consumer experience,

depending on the circumstances. Zeithaml (1988) defined the perceived value which

recognized by a large number of scholars as "the overall evaluation of the product or service utility of the user's perceived benefits and the cost of the product or service. " The perceived benefits refer to the technical support of the physical service attributes perceived by the consumer, including the enjoyment of natural and emotional benefits, external and cognitive usefulness. Perceived cost refers to the full cost of the consumer's purchase and use of the product or service, including non-monetary costs (special) and monetary costs (perceived expenses). And in the mobile payment service dimension, the empirical results of Zeithaml (1988) showed that for those users with higher price perception, the cost is the key

Through the analysis of durable goods, Sweeney and Soutar (2001) pointed out that the functional value of Sheth et al. (1991) perceived value is not very appropriate. In most research questions, the impact of quality and price on perceived value is not the same. Therefore, Sweeney and Soutar‘s customer perceived value “four-dimensional model” includes four aspects, namely, functional value (price/value for money), functional value (performance/ quality), emotional value and social value. The functional value (performance/ quality) refers to the utility of the perceived quality and performance of the product obtained by the customer. The functional value (price/ value for money) refers to the perceived utility of the customer's short-term or long-term cost reduction of the product. Emotional value refers to the utility derived from the emotional components of the product. The social value refers to the utility of the strengthening of the self-concept in the product.

To better explain and predict the adoption of mobile services by users, many academic researchers have begun to introduce other theories by the Value-based Adoption Model (VAM) for research questions in mobile payment platform perspective. Gouveia and Coelho (2007) pointed out that economic profitability, initial cost, social effects, economy effort are some important factors for consumers to make their decision whether to choose mobile services, and perception of personal innovation, the potential of convenience also proved to be crucial. In addition to that, in this paper, mobile payment platform is a particular context. So when analyzing the consumer’s adoption on mobile payment platform, many researchers realized that the extent to which individuals participate in the decision-making process reflects perceived risk and attention to decision-making objects, taking into account of individual needs, interests and personal values (Assael,1998; Blackwell et al., 2008; Coulter et al., 2003). And Chong (2015) made a research about the intention to choose mobile-commerce based on Chinese consumers, and the results showed that Chinese consumers concern about cost (monetary), satisfaction (safety) and confidence (fashion).

of functional value. Secondly, social value is chosen because China is a particular context in this paper, the cultural difference could make consumers have different choices compared to developed country consumers. And thirdly, the reason situational value is selected is that mobile payment platform (Alipay) is a particular research object in this paper. The own characteristics of a product itself could generate some added value for consumers. Mobile payment platform (Alipay) in China could make consumers perceive mobility and

convenience, which is related to situational value. And the reason that emotional value is not selected in this paper is based on the research of Sheth et al. (1991), "Emotion" accumulated to a certain extent will be able to upgrade to value. Besides, Hursthouse (2002) mentioned that "Emotions" accumulated to a certain extent will certainly be promoted to value.

Moreover, this value can stand up to the test of lasting market competition and further expand into the "emotional value." Also, during the initial steps of a new product, Sweeney and Soutar (2001) argued that social value would to some extent include the emotional value from a consumer perspective. Therefore, in general, this paper studies the adoption of mobile payment platform of Chinese consumers. Perceived value by the individual consumer and number of users could positively affect the use of the (Alipay) service. And the perceived value part is selected by functional value, social value and situational value.

2.2. Functional value

Traditionally, functional values are considered to be the most crucial driver of choice when people make decisions, such as reliability, durability, and price, etc. Sheth et al. (1991) defined functional values as the perceived utility of people from the functional, utilitarian, or physical properties of a product. For the definition of functional values, scholars are mainly referring to the definition of Sheth et al. (1991). Also, there are some similar extensions for different subjects. Creusen and Schoormans (2005) studied the appearance of products that affect consumers to accept a product shows that the product's functional value refers to the practical functions generated in the use of a product, including communication, transmission of information, quality and characteristics. However, mobile payment platform is not a physical product. Instead, it is an application that more about information technology that consumers could use with their smartphone, and it is related to financial and service

functional value included the following aspects: cost performance, product quality,

versatility, quality of service, non-monetary cost and the price. Then consider consumers in purchasing online, Jarvenpaa and Todd (2005) explored the impact of perceived value on the purchasing power of online consumers, considered the functional value would positively affect the purchase intention. Also, factors of functional value were also discussed, including perceived product quality, Site service quality, purchase cost and perceived risk. As for mobile payment platform area, perceived product quality could refer to the subjective evaluation of the pictures, texts and other information that the platform provides. Perceived website quality of service relates to the personal assessment of services of the platform. The cost of purchase is the cost paid by the network consumer to use the product (Alipay),

including the value of time and money. And perceived risk refers to the subjective evaluation of consumers to consider about privacy protection and other aspects of the possibility of risk and the severity.

In this paper, the definition of functional value could also be a kind of extension in mobile payment area. Because mobile payment platform, such as Alipay is a new product for

Chinese consumers in recent years. Consumers would consider the utility of the platform and the safety that the platform could provide to them in the first place. So the functional value in this paper mainly refers to the practicality brought by mobile payment platform, including perceived monetary value and perceived safety. Perceived monetary value is related to the cost of purchase, implement and value that mobile payment provides. Perceived safety refers to perceived risk, and both are related to consumer’s subjective evaluation of safety and risk.

2.2.1. Perceived monetary value

Benefits and costs are always vital factors that affect consumers’ choice when consumers compare and decide to choose a certain product. Consumers prefer the products with the best performance while the cost is reasonable. So here it comes up with a concept called perceived monetary value. Different researchers use different terms to express this concept. For

related to the purchase intention. So we could know for traditional products and services, perceived monetary value affect consumers’ intention positively.

However, the objective of this paper is mobile payment platform, which is not only about traditional products and services, but also about information technology. Varnali and Yilmaz (2010) defined the perceived monetary value when studying the adoption of mobile service users. In this context, the perceived monetary value is a measure of the positive and negative utility of a user's use of a product or service. If the positive effect of perception is less than the perceived negative effect, the perceived monetary value is negative, and vice versa. Also, different consumers regard the impact of price, cost, and value of the products in different ways. And this proposition is also tested by the previous researchers. Dodds et al. (1991) studied the purchase of products by evaluating prices, brands and store information. He noticed that consumers buy expensive products because they believe that high prices will have high quality, but high prices also represent the amount of money that will be cost more by the product and therefore, decrease the consumers’ willingness to buy. So perceived monetary value is not necessarily to be the costs, it has costs but may also have positive utility, that is, efficiency.

China is a developing country but with high growth rate, so consumers in China would focus more on the balance of cost and benefits. But for mobile payment platform, there is only a little data cost for the consumers to use mobile payment platform (Alipay). Instead, the benefits for the consumers would be much more significant than the costs. Therefore, the perceived monetary value would also positively influence Chinese consumer’s attitude to adopt mobile payment platform.

H1a: Perceived monetary value has a positive effect on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

2.2.2. Perceived safety

compared to shopping in a physical store, there are a lot more safety concerns of consumers when they engage in e-commerce. Besides, Vijayasarathy (2004), in predicting consumers' willingness to use online shopping, pointed out that safety and privacy are not the same concepts. Safety is concerned with any accident that consumer data is given to third parties (hackers and identity thieves) unfortunately. Online shopping safety is very prominent because only customers trust online retail transactions, they will use the credit card or mobile payment platform to finish the transaction. So for online businesses, the safety of consumers should be a priority for the companies to concern.

However, consumers are not just satisfied with the methods of security and safety which provide by the company in recent years. According to the development of mobile service, the consumers have their subjective judgment on safety issues. Shin (2009) studied the impact of perceived safety on the use of mobile wallet and mentioned that predecessors' definition of perceived safety is the degree of security that consumers believe when using a particular mobile payment program. The author argues that security is not only technical security but also subjective security. The lack of subjective security is the most common reason for consumers to refuse to use. So subjective security can be seen as a mirror of perceived security, which proves that perceived safety is a factor in the willingness to use the mobile wallet. As the scholars above mentioned have studied, the definition of this variable in this paper is the degree of safety that consumers perceive the subject.

H1b: Perceived safety has a positive impact on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

2.3. Social value

The second component under perceived value is Social value. Bourdeau et al. (2002) defined the social value is not an individual who communicates with others for the success of his own, but the desire of the individual to interact with the outside world solely for the sake of simplicity or exchange of information. According to the previous studies in developed countries, the proportion of social value in the perceived value system may not be huge, and sometimes will be even ignored. The reason is that they are from a different perspective, perceived value consider more about consumers’ subjective thinking, while the social value is more about others influences change your personal decision. For instance, Walsh and

is defined as the social utility conveyed through the product. The authors thought that

consumers would choose a brand of producers with many product categories when they buy a minibus and get more social value. However, the empirical results show that retailers do not consider social value when they buy minibuses, but continue to buy their repeat purchasing brands and are not attracted by foreign high-tech minibuses. And this is why those

researchers mentioned social value would even be ignored. Nevertheless, some other researchers have a different opinion against this perspective. Wang et al. (2004) pointed out that, when some academic researchers considering customer perceived value, they always focus only on specific parts, ignoring the other parts, leading practitioners can not profoundly understand its concept. Thus, practical significance is not outstanding. Instead, the author generated a new model, and empirical results of this model show that social value has an indirect effect on the customer relationship management performance based on customer behavior.

However, for some particular problems, social values can be well explained. For instance, the social value could have an impact on the people who use mobile payment platform. Because each consumer in the society is an independent individual, individuals could influence others behavior through interaction with others. The results of Sweeney and Soutar (2001) showed that consumers are not only considering the perceived performance, cost performance and versatility of the product, but also considering the fun and pleasure (emotional value) of the product. And the social outcomes (social values) that can be obtained through the exchange of the product with others.

2.3.1. Subjective norms

The first factor that is related to social value is subjective norms. Vallerand et al. (1992) pointed out in a confirmatory factor analysis that subjective norms refer to things that individuals perceive as necessary from other individuals or groups that he or she should do. And subjective norms are belief function, and individuals would consider the people who are important to him that guide him what should do, and have the power to reach these

instructions. So we could know that subjective norms are also related to personal thoughts, although the thoughts are influenced by others in the society. For instance, when Chang (1998) dealing with unethical behavior, subjective norms refer to the product function of a person's normative beliefs, which means personally think that the person who is important to him/or should have some behavior and that the person has the power to comply with this instruction. The results show that subjective norms can significantly affect attitudes that can lead consumers to like or dislike some behavior that is determined by the importance of other people exercising the action of the consumer. This importance to the consumer could include their parents, teachers, and peers, etc.

The influences of others could have a positive impact on consumers when they face with new product or technology. Mobile payment platform has become popular in developed countries for a long time. And researchers, Schepers and Wetzels (2007) showed that the direct impact factors that affect the user's intention to use the mobile payment are trust, subjective norms, perceived demand and perceived entertainment, and trust is the most critical factor, followed by subjective norms. The relationship between subjective norms and adoption intention is influenced by uncertainty, and collectivism and power. The higher the uncertainty of mobile phone users and the tendency of collectivism, the stronger the effect of subjective norms on adoption intention. In recent years, mobile payment platform firstly becomes prevalence in a developing country—China, the culture environment is different compared to developed countries, which is more collectivism (Schwartz,1999). And Rouibah (2008) studied the use of instant messaging by the Kuwaitis, believing that in a collectivist cultural region, such as the Arabian region, people use instant messaging because they perceive people around them to use it and hope that they also use it. The authors also argue that subjective norms have a stronger impact than perceived usefulness in the adoption of innovative products. The final empirical results show that Arab adults believe that subjective norms of stress and curiosity are the key factors that affect their use of instant messaging. Similarly, the cultural

could also impact consumer’s willingness in China.

According to the above scholars’ research on the subjective norms, we hypothesize that the adoption of a new technology or innovative products, such as mobile payment platform, consumers in China will be encouraged by family, teacher or friend, and thus subjective norms will play a role.

H2a: Subjective norms have a positive impact on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

2.3.2. Trend participation

Recently, more and more young consumers pay attention to the trend in the society and like to do some collections in some specific areas. Hafstrom et al. (1992) suggested that

consumers have Novelty-fad-fashion consciousness in examining consumer decision-making, which means consumers be aware of new fashion and new trends and get excitement and happiness from the search for new things. Trend participants are fashion advocates in some areas. Kim et al. (2002) suggested that consumer demand includes three aspects: functional requirements, social needs, and experience needs (fashion advocates). There is a healthy positive relationship between fashion leaders and experiential needs, and fashion leaders seek change, diversity, adventure and new experiences, and fashion leaders will do their best to meet the needs of experience. At the same time, the demand will be positive to strengthen the consumer's willingness to buy. Mobile payment platform, to specific, Alipay wallet could be regarded as a kind of fashion trend that young people would like to follow. Just like Shang et al. (2005) argued that fashion participation can represent the effect of social impact, and fashion refers to a form of behavior that is temporarily adopted by a distinct proportion of members of the social group, which is considered to be well adapted to time and

circumstances of social behavior. A distinct group of members would affect others in the society, especially for the product like Alipay in China, since the mobile payment services is a popular business in China nowadays.

H2b: Trend participation has a positive impact on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

2.3.3. Personal innovation

The last factor under social value is personal innovation, and it is also an essential factor which could impact consumer’s willingness to adopt a specific product or service. Gatignon and Robertson (1985) suggested that consumer innovation is not an entirely independent personality, but somewhat related to a particular product or domain. For different categories of new products, or in various areas, the consumer's innovation is also very different.

Therefore, it is more meaningful to study the innovation of consumers in specific regions to adopt innovative behavior for consumers.

Mobile payment platform is in the field of information technology products, while some scholars have studied information technology in the area of personal innovation. They all mentioned that personal innovation could positively impact people to try new things. For instance, Agarwal and Prasad (1998), when studying the personal innovation in the field of information technology, defined it as the degree to which individuals are willing to try any new information technology. The author argues that personal innovation is a good measure of the acceptance of information technology innovation. In general, people with high personal innovation will be more willing to try new technologies, they can be a good deal with high uncertainty, and can actively accept new technologies.

communication, self-confidence, energetic and adventurous, highly creative individuals will actively seek information on new things.

Mobile payment platform, firstly become popular in China with high uncertainty, but there is still a large number of young consumers prefer to use it, then it could be the result of personal innovation. Because Rogers (1995) argued that innovators and early adopters are

adventurous, able to take on higher risks and uncertainties, are willing to try new things, and that part of the people are likely to accept innovative things early, and that highly innovative individuals are more inclined to use innovative technology. Therefore, the higher the degree of perceived innovation, the higher the willingness to use new things. So those people who accept innovative things could also affect other people in the society to adopt new ideas, which conduct the social value. Besides, Hung et al. (2003) mentioned that when considering the use of wireless applications in the field of information technology, personal innovation will affect the willingness to accept, The empirical results show that individuals who have earlier than others receive wireless applications have a higher level of personal innovation. Therefore, here comes with the hypothesis.

H2c: Personal innovation has a positive impact on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

2.4. situational value

context of China is in a specific situation. The function of Alipay is not only about facilitating mobile payment processes, but also provide consumers with a variety of supplementary services and benefits, for instance, financial products, discounts, and the coupon of sellers. So this is a particular circumstance of mobile payment platform (Alipay) compared with other foreign platforms which are prevalent in developed countries for a long time. The situational value of Alipay in China is embodied in its mobility and convenience provide for consumers.

2.4.1. Perceived mobility

In this paper, the object of study is mobile payment platform in China, so this is a particular context that could generate situational value. Alipay, is the most representative mobile payment platform in China, one of the reasons that makes it such successful in China could be superior mobility for consumers to use. Another reason could be Smartphone and 4G network popularize in China in recent years (Cnnic.net.cn, 2016). Amberg et al. (2004) used the Compass Acceptance Model to analyze and evaluate mobile services and argued that benefit and the general condition of the service represent the area of perceived mobility. The dimensions of the concept of perceived mobility can be network coverage, accessibility, and technology infrastructure. In mobile payment platform context, Mallat et al. (2009) argue that mobility refers to the movement of technology, people, and equipment. Compared with traditional e-commerce, mobile services provide access to information, communications, and services that are independent of time and place.

The product itself generates the mobility, and it could be a reason to influence consumer’s perception to choose a specific product. Mobile technology allows people to provide more freedom and value to access time-limited information and services, no matter when and wherever they are. Just like Kim et al. (2010) showed in examining the influencing factors of mobile willingness to use that the most significant highlight of mobile technology is mobile itself. Mobility is the ability to receive service everywhere ubiquitous from mobile devices, including Pads, mobile phones and also through the wireless network to obtain services.

H3a: Perceived mobility has a positive impact on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

2.4.2. Perceived convenience

Consumers prefer the products which could offer them with maximal convenience. Bhatnagar et al. (2000) pointed out in the risks and convenience of online shopping that consumers want to maximize their effectiveness, not just money savings, but also time savings. The author shows that the convenience of the site to the user will enable users to increase the number of online shopping. Due to the rapid development of technology, the contrast between new technology and traditional technology will give users more aware of convenience. There is a lot of research on the perceived convenience of alternating techniques. For instance, Liao and Cheung (2002) study the relationship between e-banking and users’ attitudes, it showed that compare to the traditional retail banking business, Internet-based electronic banking can give users anytime, anywhere convenience to promote the user using online e-banking, which is an important quality attribute of perceived convenience. And, furthermore, Xu and Gordon (2006) in the empirical study of mobile business applications and critical success factors show that convenience is a powerful and small size of the mobile terminal that can make users at any time, anywhere use the right service. Compared to commerce, mobile e-commerce is more convenient. In this paper, Alipay is an application in mobile e-e-commerce area, and consumers could use Alipay with their smartphone at any time, anywhere. Just like Kim et al. (2010) pointed out in the empirical study of the willingness to use mobile

payments that the convenience of combining time and location facilitates not only the

perceived ease of use of consumer use by mobile payments but also the perceived usefulness of consumers.

In general, there is one level of hypothesis in this paper. The assumptions in this article are to test whether the perceived monetary value, perceived safety, subjective norms, trend

participation, personal innovation, perceived mobility and perceived convenience would positively influence consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform (Alipay) in China. The research conceptual model is presented in figure 2.1.

3. Research methods

3.1. Data collection procedure

The research strategy in this study is the questionnaire that belongs to quantitative research. There are several ways to conduct research, for instance, descriptive, explanatory, qualitative, and quantitative (Burns and Bush,2013). So it is important to choose a proper research

method. For this thesis, all the data is collected mainly through online questionnaire from a website called Qualtrics, using an anonymous survey link. Gault(1907) mentioned that “A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions (or other types of prompts) for the purpose of gathering information from respondents.” The study in this paper is individual consumers in China. Questionnaire method can conduct a large-scale survey, and the results of the questionnaire are easy to quantify (Saris and Gallhofer,2014). Besides, it is vital to reach a representative sample of consumers. So it is reasonable to choose online questionnaire in this paper. The data is conducted over the course of 3 weeks. It is a questionnaire regarding the willingness of the consumer to adopt mobile payment platform, in particular, Alipay is an example. And snowball sampling method is used during the data collection period. The anonymous survey is firstly sent to my good friends in China, and abroad, then they sent the anonymous survey link to their friends to collect more data. In order to make sure that the measured beliefs were based on direct behavioral experience with the object, only those who had previous knowledge about mobile payment platform (Alipay) are included in this analysis. Respondents involved in this study are mainly students and those who just enter the society and get a job. In order to ensure that respondents are students and young people who just get a job, respondents were asked to provide information about their age and their current conditions. And respondents were also asked to provide

3.2. Measurements

In a questionnaire, the choice of items is needed for each variable to measure. Items should be as far as possible has been developed, mature measurement items. For some variables that can not be found entirely in the existing measure, such as the perceived monetary value, mainly based on the relevant research in the literature and research problem and background in this paper to measure the variables. Finally, through the questionnaire survey data

collection, using the statistical analysis to verify the conceptual model proposed in the previous section.

In the theoretical research model, the dependent variable is the user’s willingness. The independent variables include the perceived monetary value, the perceived safety, the

subjective norms, the trend participation, the personal innovation, the perceived convenience and the perceived mobility. All variables were measured by the Likert 5 scale, and the questionnaires were answered with "Strongly agree" to "Strongly disagree" 5 levels. Apart from that, gender, age, education, current status, the period of knowing, and frequency of usage in a week are all control variables in this questionnaire. These control variables are employed to target on suitable respondents and make the subsequent empirical analysis more precisely because the may have an impact on the dependent variable and the phenomenon.

3.2.1. Perceived monetary value

The empirical study of the perceived monetary value is primarily limited to the price aspect, such as Kim et al. (2007) only measures price aspect. However, the mobile payment platform studied in this paper is different from the mobile Internet studied by the predecessors. The mobile payment platform has many new positions, such as financial products on the mobile payment platform and discount coupon. Based on the unique nature of the mobile payment platform, scale from Kim et al. (2007) is adapted to measure. Thus, the perceived monetary value is measured as follows:

PMV1. The value obtained from the mobile payment platform is worth more than the cost of the data that needs to be paid

PMV2. Financial products on mobile payment platform can provide me with return on investment

PMV4. Overall, the use of mobile payment platform can provide me a good monetary value

3.2.2. Perceived safety

Perceived security is a relatively mature variable. The expression is “perception of security control” and “perception of security”, through the understanding of the literature, these two ways to express the content is basically the same. Koufaris and Hampton-Sosa (2004) and Schierz et al. (2010) had four aspects of perceived safety. Thus, the measurement in this paper is as follows:

PS1. Mobile payment platform has security measures to protect users

PS2. For security reasons, the mobile payment platform has the ability to verify the identity of consumers

PS3. Mobile payment platform ensures that consumer information and billing information is not disclosed and misused

PS4. For using the mobile payment platform, I feel secured

3.2.3. Subjective norms

The predecessors have a very mature study of the subjective norms. The measurements of Venkatesh and Morris (2000), and Rouibah (2008) on the subjective norms are very mature and widely used. So this article draws on, as follows:

SN1. Those who are important to me recommend me to use the mobile payment platform, e.g., idol

SN2. Those who have an impact on me suggest me to use the mobile payment platform SN3. The people around me encouraged me to use the mobile payment platform

SN4. As far as I know, people I know are using the mobile payment platform

3.2.4. Trend participation

Trend participation refers to the individual concern about the trend of a particular area of information and has the idea of participating in the trend. The items of Shang et al. (2005) mentioned is mature and well developed. Thus, this article draws on the maturity scale as follows:

TP2. If there is a chance, I would like to try to engage in other activities, occupations

TP3. I will pay attention to the trend of society, while get the courage to show myself is in the trend

TP4. I will try to participate in the latest trend

3.2.5. Personal innovation

Different scholars have a lot of personal innovation researches. English expression of personal innovative could be a little bit different, but are expressed the same meaning. Agarwal and Prasad (1998) and Lee et al. (2011) have four aspects of personal innovation is well organized and widely used. The measurement is summarized as follows:

PI1. I like to try new technology

PI2. In my peers, I am more willing to try new technology

PI3. Even a little risky, I still have the intention to use new technology PI4. In general, I am more willing to accept new ideas and things

3.2.6. Perceived convenience

Perceived convenience refers to the convenience that consumers perceived about time, space and place when they using innovative products. Kim et al. (2010) study the measure of perceived convenience in mobile payments. This paper directly refers to the measurements from Kim et al. (2010) as follows:

PC1. Mobile payment platform is very convenient, because the phone is usually with me PC2. Mobile payment platform is very convenient, because I can use it anytime, anywhere PC3. Mobile payment platform is very convenient, because the mobile payment operations is not complicated

PC4. Mobile payment platform is very convenient, because it is easy access to a variety of services

3.2.7. Perceived mobility

PM1. Use the mobile payment platform without time constraints PM2. Use the mobile payment platform without location restrictions

PM3. When you are outside, I can use smart phones get access to the mobile payment platform anytime, anywhere

3.2.8. Dependent variable — Consumer’s willingness

The willingness of usage and actual use are both common used variables when academic researchers study the willingness of adoption. The research did in this paper is about the willingness to use. Moon and Kim (2001) in the study of the World Wide Web generated the measurement of the willingness to use is suitable to be used in this paper. Therefore, the measurement of the willingness to use includes:

Wi1. I am willing to use the mobile payment platform in the future

Wi2. I am willing to use the mobile payment platform frequently in the future

Wi3. I am willing to recommend other people to use the mobile payment platform in the future

3.2.9 Control variables

Control variables in this study include gender, age, education, status, the period of knowing, and using frequency. Since control variables are involved in hypothesis testing process, and most control variables are built as choosing group in the questionnaire. So control variables should be transferred into applicable independent variables. As for gender, 1 represents “male” while 0 represents “female”. Regarding age, because respondents can fill in their age in the questionnaire so that age can be used in analysis directly. As for education. “secondary school” and “undergraduate degree” are classified into “lower”, represented by 0.

4. Data analysis and results

4.1. Demographic analysis

In this paper, a total number of 212 respondents are selected to do the analysis. All respondents are Chinese. The demographic profile of respondents is shown Table 4.1. Table 4.1. Demographic profile of respondents

Division Variable option Frequency Percent%

Gender Male 108 50.94 Female 104 49.06 Total 212 100 Age 17-20 17 8.02 21-24 105 49.53 25-28 78 36.79 29 or Older 12 5.66 Total 212 100

Education Secondary school 26 12.26

Undergraduate 133 62.74

Postgraduate 50 23.58

PhD 3 1.42

Total 212 100

Status Employed full time 85 40.09

Employed part time 11 5.19

Unemployed looking for job

27 12.74

Unemployed not looking for job

9 4.24

Student 80 37.74

Total 212 100.0

Period of knowing Within a month 2 0.94

1-3 months 3 1.42

3-6 months 1 0.47

6 months – 1 year 6 2.83

1 year or above 200 94.34

Total 212 100.0

Use frequency per week

Once or twice 20 9.43

Three or four times 69 32.55

Five or six times 54 25.47

Everyday 69 32.55

Regarding gender, the proportion of male and female is almost balanced. Concerning age, the data of respondents are distributed primarily from 21 to 28, which 21-24 years old account for 49.53%, while 25-28 years old account for 36.79%, in total it is 86.32%. In terms of Education, undergraduate students constitute the majority, whereas postgraduate student composes in the second place. About the current status of the respondents, employed full time and student is in the leading position, constituted 40.09% and 37.74% separately. In terms of the period of knowing mobile payment platform, a vast majority of respondent chose one year or above, 94.34%, and all the respondents in this paper are already mobile payment platform users. Non-users are not included in this study. And 32.55% of all 212 respondents use mobile payment platform three or four times a week, followed by those who use every day and five or six times a week.

4.2. Reliability and validity analysis

Table 4.2: Results of reliability and validity of each single variable

Variable Item Component matrixa _{% of}

variance Reliability Functional value Perceived monetary value PMV1 0.648 53.724 0.712 PMV2 0.794 PMV3 0.773 PMV4 0.708 Perceived safety PS1 0.840 63.643 0.806 PS2 0.778 PS3 0.784 PS4 0.789 Social value Subjective norms SN1 0.537 52.575 0.650 SN2 0.873 SN3 0.827 SN4 0.607 Trend participation TP1 0.668 56.088 0.731 TP2 0.750 TP3 0.841 TP4 0.726 Personal innovation PI1 0.805 69.748 0.852 PI2 0.870 PI3 0.871 PI4 0.791 Situational value Perceived convenience PC1 0.761 63.083 0.784 PC2 0.872 PC3 0.801 PC4 0.736 Perceived mobility PM1 0.740 60.793 0.660 PM2 0.773 PM3 0.824 Willingness Wi1 0.889 72.913 0.803 Wi2 0.868 Wi3 0.802

the loading of one item (PMV4, Overall, the use of mobile payment platform can provide me a good monetary value) is not greater than 0.5, suggesting that the scale should not include this. However, the reliability analysis for PMV1-PMV3 is tested, and the new score is 0.662, smaller than the score of PMV1-PMV4 (0.712), so item PMV4(Overall, the use of mobile payment platform can provide me a good monetary value) is still reserved as an item under perceived monetary value.

Next, in social value group, there used to be three variables in this group, after the varimax rotation of these three variables, the result showed that there still three factors in this group. However, the item (TP4, I will try to participate in the latest trend) that measures trend participation goes into the factor group of personal innovation (PI1-PI4) and generates a new factor group. The score of reliability analysis for this new factor group is 0.866, greater than the score of PI1-PI4 (0.852). In addition, the research objective in this paper is mobile payment platform, it is a product with high technology, and the latest trend in this paper could be regarded as the trend in new technology. Therefore, the item TP4 (I will try to participate in the latest trend) should move to factor group 1 and generate personal innovation variable with item PI1-PI4. In factor group 2, item SN1(Those who are important to me recommend me to use the mobile payment platform, e.g. idol) is lower than 0.5, and the score of reliability analysis for SN2-SN4 is 0.718, much greater than 0.650(SN1-SN4). So SN1 (Those who are important to me recommend me to use the mobile payment platform, e.g. idol) is abandoned. In factor group 3, since TP4 (I will try to participate in the latest trend) is moved to factor group 1. Therefore, TP1-TP3 generate the factor group 3, which is trend participation. Finally, in situational value group, the result showed that all the items that measure both perceived mobility and perceived convenience constitute a one-factor group. The reason is that as mention before, in the context of mobile payment platform, convenience to some extent is caused by the mobility. So it is plausible that items under perceived

Table 4.3: Results of reliability and validity analysis combined factor under each value group

Functional value group

Item Factor group Reliability

1 2 PS1 0.829 0.806 PS2 0.721 PS3 0.743 PS4 0.746 PMV1 0.838 0.662 PMV2 0.604 PMV3 0.704 PMV4

Social value group

Item Factor group reliability

1 2 3 PI3 0.835 0.866 PI2 0.798 PI4 0.779 PI1 0.751 TP4 0.627 SN2 0.872 0.718 SN3 0.813 SN4 0.503 TP2 0.866 0.686 TP3 0.618 TP1 0.610 SN1

Situational value group

Item Factor group Reliability

1 PC2 0.823 0.823 PC3 0.777 PM3 0.751 PC1 0.723 PM1 0.720 PC4 0.677 PM2 0.536

the dependent variable (consumer’s willingness). Apart from that, the results also illustrate that factors within the same group will be more correlated, especially when it came to perceived mobility and perceived convenience, r = .649, n = 212, p = 0.00. So it further shows that it is reasonable to combine these two factors into one factor.

Table 4.4 Results of correlation analysis of dependent variables and independent variable Perceived monetary value Perceived safety Subjective norms Trend participation Personal innovation Perceived convenience Perceived mobility Dependent variable: willingness Perceived monetary value Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N 1 212 Perceived monetary value Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N .599** .000 212 1 212 Subjective norms Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N .453** .000 212 .434** .000 212 1 212 Trend participation Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N .489** .000 212 .450** .000 212 .392** .000 212 1 212 Personal innovation Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N .462** .000 212 .485** .000 212 .468** .000 212 .543** .000 212 1 212 Perceived convenience Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N .501** .000 212 .398** .000 212 .565** .000 212 .416** .000 212 .435** .000 212 1 212 Perceived mobility Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N .422** .000 212 .310** .000 212 .504** .000 212 .494** .000 212 .351** .000 212 .649** .000 212 1 212 Dependent variable: willingness Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N .527** .000 212 .398** .000 212 .572** .000 212 .386** .000 212 .455** .000 212 .774** .000 212 .634** .000 212 1 212 Note: **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

4.3. Hypothesis testing

and willingness are tested. Third, the relationship between subjective norms, trend participation, and personal innovation under social value with willingness are examined. Next, the hypothesis associated with perceived mobility and perceived convenience, and willingness is tested. This means that perceived mobility and convenience generate H3, no longer separating H3a and H3b. After that, the effect of each variable on consumer’s willingness is tested with control variables and without control variables separately. The results of these tests are shown in Table 4.5.

As it is shown in Model 1, consumer’s willingness could be explained 3.9% with all control variables. In addition, the impact of gender, age, education, and status are not significant, while using frequency is positively (β = .202) and significantly (p<.01) associated with willingness. However, the results show that overall impact of control variables on consumer’s willingness in this study is not significant. When entering the perceived monetary value and perceived safety into the regression, the willingness can be explained 30.5% by both

perceived monetary value and perceived safety (Table 4.5, Model 2). Besides, the results of regression analysis showed that perceived monetary value is positively (β = .456) and significantly(P<.001) associated with consumer’s willingness, thus, H1a is supported. Perceived safety is positively (β = .103) associated with willingness but not significantly, thus, H1b is not supported. As can be seen in Table 4.5, Model 3, subjective norms, trend participation, and personal innovation can explain 38.4% of consumer’s willingness. Subjective norms are associated with consumer’s willingness (β = .443, p<.001). Furthermore, personal innovation is also positively and significantly associated with

Table 4.5: Regression analysis: Determinants of consumer’s willingness to adopt

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5

Gender -.039(-.563) .028(.477) .029(.522) .010(.241) .027(.625) Age -.074(-.821) -.088(-1.147) -.060(-.835) -.008(-.147) -.021(-.375) Education .018(.247) .016(.264) -.030(-.517) .042(.921) .016(.353) Status -.108(-1.279) -.059(-.823) -.020(-.288) -.043(-.802) -.019(-.370) Using frequency .202(2.855)** .177(2.937)** .159(2.798)** .026(.581) .055(1.238) Perceived monetary value .456(6.300)*** .157(2.738)** Perceived safety .103(1.407) -.004(-.078) Subjective norms .443(7.097)*** .118(2.157)* Trend participation .106(1.604) -.101(-1.872) Personal innovation .172(2.459)* .099(1.797)* Perceived mobility and convenience .785(18.358)*** .629(10.843)*** F 2.698* 14.247*** 17.410*** 337.101*** 35.626*** Highest VIF 1.761 1.784 1.773 1.000 1.946 Observation 212 212 212 212 212 Adjusted R2 _{.039 .305 .384 .614 .644}

Note: Dependent variable: consumer’s willingness to adopt *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001

Table 4.5: Summary of hypothesis testing

Hypothesis Support for hypothesis

Hypothesis 1a: Perceived monetary value has a positive effect on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

Supported

Hypothesis 1b: Perceived safety has a positive impact on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

Not supported

Hypothesis 2a: Subjective norms have a positive impact on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

Supported

Hypothesis 2b: Trend participation has a positive impact on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

Not supported

Hypothesis 2c: Personal innovation has a positive impact on consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

Supported

Hypothesis 3: Perceived mobility and convenience has a positive impact on

consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform.

Besides, H3a and H3b are also tested, and both of them are supported.

5.Discussion and Implications

This paper mainly studies the influencing factors of consumers' willingness to adopt mobile payment platform in China. According to the hypothesis test results in Table 4.5, it can be seen that two of the seven hypotheses are not supported, while five hypotheses are supported. Five supported hypothesis includes perceived monetary value, subjective norms, personal innovation, perceived mobility, and perceived convenience. And two not endorsed hypothesis is perceived safety, and trend participation. In the following, this paper analyzes them

separately.

5.1 Functional value perspective

Perceived monetary value hypothesis and perceived safety hypothesis are two hypotheses that based on functional value. This study provides the evidence that consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform in China is positively associated perceived monetary value. This result is the same as the previous study (Chong, A. Y.-L. 2015; Grewal, D. 1998). Previous studies have shown that if consumers feel the price is suitable, value for money, then the product has a particular perceived monetary value (Dodds et al., 1991). One of the critical parts of the perceived monetary value is the price. However, the mobile payment platform studied in this paper is not only about value for money, but also able to provide more economic benefits for consumers. For instance, consumers can acquire discount coupon from Alipay platform, and the platform provides a financial platform called Yu’ E Bao the enable consumers to use idle funds for financial management. Also, the costs that consumer perceived during using Alipay is minimal. Consumers can use any function of Alipay without any fees other than data costs. Besides, data costs in China are becoming lower and lower in recent years. Also, China is a fast-growing developing country in the world, with

approximate 6 to 7 gross domestic product (GDP) every year. The living standards of the residents have increased year by year. So data costs would not be a barrier for consumers to adopt a mobile payment platform, such as Alipay.

safety is not an issue that defines willingness to use in China. Chinese consumers, especially young consumers, have not entirely trust mobile payment platform (Alipay) in China in these years. Chong et al. (2012) suggested that the trust of technology is to some extent based on the users' safety perception. For perceived safety, it probably because the consumer's trust in the mobile payment platform is very low. The mobile payment platform will use the bank card information, while China's legal system and network control are not perfect (L. Sun and Y.J. Sun, 2012). If the mobile payment platform leaked the relevant bank card password information, then the consumer's deposit will be stolen, and it is impossible to retrieve the money. In addition, because of the cultural difference, Chinese consumers are relatively conservative, which means that Chinese consumers emphasize more about safety issues. So, consumers almost completely do not trust the mobile payment platform. In this case, the results show that the effect of the safety on consumer’s willingness is not significant. However, even though consumers in China do not trust the network safety, they continue using the mobile payment platform because mobile payment is a trend in China in recent years. The reason of this circumstance would be mobile penetration rate is high and it does not require plenty of infrastructure and buildings compared to the fixed banking services. Another reason could be social influences over the impact of perceived safety in consumer’s mind (Chong et al., 2012). The authors mentioned that although perceived safety negatively impact the consumers to adopt mobile payment, the social aspects in their personal life increase their willingness to adopt mobile payment platforms.

5.2 Social value perspective

(Alipay) in China, people around you are using it and they recommend you to follow them, and consumers would be easier to be persuaded to adopt the product.

However, the result of trend participation in this study is opposite to the anticipation. Besides, it is also to the contrary to some previous researches from developed countries (Shang et al. 2005). The result shows in Table 4.4, Model 3 indicates that the direction of trend

participation and consumer’s willingness in China is positive, while it is not significant. It means that young consumers are willing to participate in the latest trend, but as for mobile payment platform, technically, it could not be regarded as a fashion trend in China. Mobile payment platform is a kind of high-tech product of information technology. Although it is popular in China in recent years, consumers are not able to perceive it as a common trend in their daily life when compared it with fashion trend, such as clothing trend or other trends that are much easier of consumers to perceive in their daily routines. Mobile payment platform (Alipay) has not been such an impressive trend in the society, so that would be the reason that consumers are less likely to be influenced by trend participation.

The result of personal innovation in this study is the same with some previous researchers (Yang, 2005; Kim et al. 2010). Gatignon and Robertson (1985) could provide some reason that why personal innovation positively influences consumer’s willingness to adopt a product in China. The authors mentioned that consumer innovation is not an entirely independent personality, but somewhat related to a specific product or domain. When it comes to a product that based on high technology, individual’s innovation could also be influenced by the external environment. Mobile payment platform is a product related to information technology, high technology aspects. So the result suggests that young consumers in China are willing to attempt to the high-tech products. And those people with high personal innovation in technical aspect could also affect other people in the society to adopt new things.

5.3 Situational value perspective

The results show in regression analysis indicate that perceived mobility and perceived

consider not only about the function that the product provides, but also the features of the product itself. In addition, mobility generates convenience for consumers, and this kind of convenience is easy to be perceived by consumers. Bhatnagar et al. (2000) pointed out in the risks and conveniences of online shopping that current consumers want to maximize the utility, not only for money but also for the saving of time. So it suggests that compared to e-commerce, mobile e-commerce is more convenient. The product needs to provide what consumers want, and it will foster consumers to choose this product.

5.4 implications

The most critical finding in this paper is that not only perceived monetary value under functional value, and perceived mobility, perceived convenience under situational value could positively influence Chinese consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform (Alipay), but also subjective norms and personal innovation under social value positively influence consumer’s willingness in China. And those results suggest that cultural differences could have an impact on Chinese consumer’s willingness (Inglehart,2004). Previous

researchers mentioned that social values aspects could have no impact or only have an indirect impact on consumer’s willingness (Walsh and Mitchell, 2010). However, the results in this paper suggest that some aspects of social value could influence consumer’s

willingness directly in China. This is a huge difference between Chinese consumers and western consumers. Cultural differences enable factors that do not have an obvious impact on western consumers have a distinct impact on Chinese consumers when they adopt mobile payment platform (Alipay).

Another implication of this study is that the results provide some suggestions for Alibaba to promote the mobile payment platform (Alipay) in China. The results show in this study indicate that mobility and convenience are two big reasons for a consumer to adopt Alipay in China. Therefore, the company should improve the product to be more convenient for

persuade Chinese consumers. Thus, the company could promote their product through social impacts. For instance, the company could take some fantastic advertisements to attract those who are interested in high-tech products, and then those people could have an impact on their friends and family members. Finally, although perceived safety in this study shows a negative impact on consumer’s willingness, the company also need to improve its security

arrangement of the product, in order to provide consumers with higher safety guarantee, enhance consumer trust with the product. For instance, the company could spread safety measures that the company has already employed to enhance the awareness among consumers. Besides, the company could use some instruments such as firewalls, and encryption to eliminate the intrusion from third parties (Cheng et al.,2006). Thus, the perception in consumer’s mind could be changed towards a good direction.

6. Limitation and future research

This study has several limitations that should be acknowledged. First, the target market in this study is only Chinese consumers. However, the system of the market varies differently in different countries (Matten & Moon, 2008). Different consumers in other developing

countries could make different choices so that the results could be inconsistent due to various cultural backgrounds. Therefore, for the future studies, some other developing countries that mobile payment platform is rising should be targeted, and comparison could also be used between different developing countries consumers with Chinese consumers, or with

old) that have been working for some years. Besides, future research could also aim those who have not start using mobile payment platform as their research objects. Fourth, this study is based on perceived value, while functional value, social value, and situational value are taken as theory background. According to Sheth et al. (1991), perceived value is a multidimensional concept, including functional value, social value, emotional value, cognitive value and situational value. So it is obvious that emotional value and cognitive value are not employed in this study. However, after mobile payment platform developing in China in the next few years, emotional value and cognitive value are suitable to be used. So in the future research, researchers could study the Chinese consumer’s willingness to adopt mobile payment platform from emotional value and cognitive value. Another limitation in this paper is that the background theories which is used are primarily focused on the individual level, subjective thoughts of consumers. Even though social value part is

mentioned and analyzed in the paper, it is still based on individual subjective decisions. Be specific, social value and social factors impact on individual to make their own decisions. However, some researchers also study this issue primarily from social effect perspectives, such as network effect (Katz and Shapiro,1985) and bandwagon effect (Leibenstein, 1997; Herpen et al., 2009). Consequently, future research could try to use network effect and bandwagon effect to study consumer’s willingness.

7. Conclusion

Academic researchers have a lot of research on the adoption of mobile services, including mobile payment, mobile games, mobile payment and so on. The mobile payment platform is a new technology or payment method that has only recently emerged in China. There are few previous studies on the mobile payment platform. In this case, the research on mobile

payment platform has specific theoretical, and practical significance.