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Although the total number of mobile subscriptions reached 6.8 billion worldwide (ITU, 2013) confirming in the process that mobile technology is widespread, academic literature has so far focused only on explaining adoption of mobile technology and services. This literature review analyses 67 studies from the period 2005-2013 and finds the following: a) most studies are quantitative in nature and come from Asia; b) the Technology Acceptance Model is the most used theory; c) future research should also utilise qualitative methods and examine the behavioural outcomes of mobile adoption instead of simply adoption in consumer markets. peerReviewed

The objective of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing communications. Specifically, we study whether the existing marketing communications performance metrics are still valid in the changing digitalised communications landscape, or whether it is time to rethink them, or even to devise entirely new metrics. Recent advances in information technology and marketing bring a need to re-examine measurement models. We combine two important research topics and set directions for potential future research. Metrics to measure marketing communications performance have developed towards a customer orientation. There is no broadly accepted opinion of a single critical performance indicator. Our findings suggest that social media marketing metrics have been classified in three groups: qualitative, quantitative and financial. All these categories are required. The shift towards a digitised interactive marketing environment does not necessarily mean that a whole array of new measurement metrics is needed. peerReviewed

This study endeavours to contribute to a better understanding of Service Quality (SQ) in online banking by examining the various dimensions related to creating a satisfactory online banking experience. The authors develop a conceptual model and test it with a convenience sample of 183 online banking users. The empirical test of the model finds strong support for the links between perceived security and Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease Of Use (PEOU), reliability and PU and PEOU, between PEOU and satisfaction and finally between satisfaction and loyalty. The study finally provides both theoretical and practical contributions, outlines the main limitations of the study and gives ideas for further work in this area.

The objective of this study is to examine advertisers' perceptions of search engine marketing. The theoretical part of the study investigates the two aspects of search engine marketing, namely advertising and optimisation. With the use of a qualitative case study conducted with leading search engine marketers and experts in Finland, the paper suggests that search engine marketing is still in its infancy among Finnish companies. Whereas small-sized dot-com companies operating in the Business-to-Business (B2B) sector have been most active in search engine marketing, traditional brick-and-mortars are just starting to set plans for search engine marketing. Finally, the study discusses the implications and provides future research directions.

The impact of social and cultural factors on the adoption of technology still requires much research. To investigate it more fully, we examine the reasons for the adoption and non-adoption of mobile banking in Ghana. Through a survey of 271 people in Ghana, it has been found that social and cultural factors in the form of perceived credibility, facilitating conditions, perceived elitisation and demographic factors do play a significant role in adoption decisions. It has been found that elitisation of technology and services can be a positive influence for adopters whilst being a negative influence for non-adopters. In addition, perceived credibility and facilitating conditions also influence attitudes towards the technology. When these factors are added to a range of demographic factors, the impact of the social and cultural features of the context of studies can be seen as significant.

Although the launch phase in New Product Development (NPD) has been recognised as a vital stage affecting the success of new products, it is often poorly managed for various reasons. The purpose of this paper is to understand launch management in its context better by looking at the drivers and bottlenecks of launches inside a young and growing global industrial equipment supplier with the use of a case study method. The findings of the study show that the enforcement of internal marketing, market knowledge use, marketing communications and the organisation of marketing activities and their links to other company functions are the main drivers of a successful launch. The paper presents a launch as an independent process managed by the marketing department and discusses the links between the launch and other processes such as NPD. Both theoretical and managerial contributions are provided at the end.

The study examines factors that affect consumers' intentions to participate in mobile marketing and explores the relationship between consumers' intentions to participate in mobile marketing and their experience with mobile marketing. The authors develop and test a research model with a sample of 4062 mobile phone users. The empirical model highlights that Perceived Utility (PU), context, credibility and Perceived Social Utility (PSU) are the main contributors to consumers' intentions to participate in mobile-marketing initiatives. The paper provides several contributions to both theory and practice.

Although communication has been investigated within relationship-oriented contexts, studies concerning communication within Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are scarce, especially when customer relationships are managed with the aid of the mobile medium. The purpose of this study is to increase general understanding of communication within the mobile context, in which the communicating parties are connected through the mobile medium. The authors present a model of the communication process within the mobile context based on a case study. The main results of the study indicate that the communication process within the mobile context differs significantly from the process through traditional channels.

The study investigates factors that affect consumer attitudes towards mobile marketing by developing a conceptual model that is tested with a sample of 4,062 consumers. The results show that context, credibility and subjective norm are positively related to intention to participate in mobile marketing whereas perceived behavioral control and financial rewards were not associated with intention. The results give insights into consumer perceptions of mobile marketing and open several avenues for further research in this emerging topic.

The purpose of the present study is to build a conceptual model of consumers' willingness to accept mobile advertising. First, the study investigates factors that influence the acceptance of mobile advertising from both industry's and consumers' point of view. Second, based on a review of previous studies in the field, the authors propose a conceptual model of consumers' willingness to accept mobile advertising. The model, based on four research hypotheses, indicates that consumers' willingness to receive mobile advertisements to handsets is mainly driven by four factors: role of mobile medium in marketing mix; development of technology; one-to-one marketing medium; regulatory. The findings provide several conceptual and managerial insights into the role of mobile advertising today and in the near future.