Factors influencing online music purchase intention in Taiwan

Factors influencing online musicpurchase intention in Taiwan

An empirical study based on thevalue-intention framework

Ching-Wen Chu and Hsi-Peng LuDepartment of Information Management,

National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an explanation of factors influencing online musicpurchase intention of Taiwanese early adopter of online music, which can help the online musicpractitioners of Taiwan to develop better market strategies.

Design/methodology/approach – An empirical survey was used to test the hypotheses. Data werecollected from a total of 302 online Taiwanese early adopters of online music. A structural equationmodeling (SEM) is proposed to assess the relationships of the research model.

Finding – The findings in this paper show that the perceived value of online music is a significantfactor in predicting the purchaser intention of buying online music in Taiwan. Also, the beneficialfactor of the perceived usefulness and playfulness are identified in addition to the sacrificing factor ofthe perceived price for assessing the value. Moreover, purchasers and potential purchasers differ in thedeterminants underlying the perceptions of value, which customers hold towards online music.

Practical implications – The results in the paper facilitate to understand what encourages andimpedes the purchase intention of early adopters of online music in Taiwan.

Originality/value – The value of this paper is to establish a theoretical model incorporating thevalue-intention framework into technology acceptance model to investigate the purchase behavior ofearly adopter of online music in Taiwan. The results of this study help online music practitioners ofTaiwan and other Asian countries culture similar to Taiwan to create a success business model.

Keywords Music, Internet, Consumer behaviour, Taiwan

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionIn recent years, the hedonic-oriented online content has been growing at a dramaticallyfast speed. Among those contents, online music is steadily forming a part of thecommercial landscape in an increasing rate (Koiso-Kanttila, 2004). According toStrategy Analytics (2005) report, people in North America and Western Europe spendbillions of dollars to purchase music from sources like Apple Computer’s iTunes MusicStore, Napster, Yahoo and a hoard of Internet service providers. Revenues generatedfrom online music in those two regional markets have been more than quadrupled,from $1.1 billion in 2005 to $4.5 billion by 2010. However, when compared with therapid growth of the online music markets in the USA and Western Europe, no suchsuccess has emerged in Asia. In light of the recent survey by Synovate (2005), 70percent of Asians who own an MP3 player and download music from the Internet in atypical week are not willing to pay for such downloads, particularly in Great ChinaRegion including Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, the proportion is nearly upto 80 percent.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/1066-2243.htm

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Internet ResearchVol. 17 No. 2, 2007

pp. 139-155q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

1066-2243DOI 10.1108/10662240710737004

The online music service indicating, legal music, web sites is an innovative product,and it may cause the enormous change of procurement behavior of the music works.Like a lot of Asian countries, the online music market of Taiwan at present has justsprouted. According to Technology Adoption Life Cycle (Moore, 1991), the earlyadopters consist of technology enthusiasts and visionaries. The enthusiast refers towhom feels a great interest in brand-new technologies and hopes to take the lead inobtaining them, and the visionaries refers to whom have inclinations of easilyvisualizing, understanding and accepting interests of new technologies and whom tendto buy the products in order to realize their dreams. If practitioners cannot launch theearly market smoothly, it is very difficult to make a profit to support the financialissue, and even may withdraw from the market, such as iMusic (Taipei Times, 2006).On the contrary, if practitioners create favorable models of early adopters, not onlythey may succeed in early markets but also there will be great help for entering themainstream market. Thus, to the practitioners who still look for success businessmodels, it is important to investigate which factors are significant for early adopters ofonline music. Accordingly, we propose the first research question: what are the keyfactors identified by early adopters of online music in Taiwan? To raise the marketshare of early market of online music, the practitioners not only increase the newcustomer indicating potential purchaser in this study but also have to keep therepurchasing or continual subscribing rate of existing customers indicting purchasers.As a result, to make a better understanding of the different factor of purchasers andpotential purchasers is necessary. We propose the second research question: Do thosedeterminants vary in the purchase process of purchasers and potential purchasers?

Over the past decade, the researchers of information technology (IT) have paidmuch attention to why people accepted hedonic-oriented IT (Venkatesh and Brown,2001; van der Heijden, 2004). In this effort, Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989)based on believe-attitude-intention-behavior theory had been employed (Koufaris,2002; Hsu and Lu, 2004; van der Heijden, 2004). However, TAM is applied primarily toexplain acceptance and usage of IT in the workplace. Unlike simple IT adoption, onlinemusic purchase behavior embraces not only IT adoption but also the hedonicconsumption behavior. Online music consumers must possess the characteristics ofboth hedonic-oriented IT adopters and consumers. Therefore, this study subsumescustomer value theory in IT acceptance studies to answer two research questions. Thefindings of this study may help online music practitioners to construct marketingstrategies, and also help researchers to understand the hedonic-oriented onlinepurchase behavior of Taiwanese.

Value-intention frameworkDodds and Monroe (1985) developed the value-intention framework, which assumesthat the individual willingness to perform a certain behavior is directly influenced byperceived value of behavior consequences. A lot of studies have examined issuesrelated to the nature and application of value owing to the important role in predictingcertain behaviors (Chen and Dubinsky, 2003; Zeithaml, 1988).

The value-intention framework (Dodds and Monroe, 1985) proposed an overview ofthe relationships among the concepts of perceived sacrifice, quality, and value. Amongthem, perceived value is regarded as the core construct. Woodruff (1997) defined valueas “the trade-off between of benefit, i.e. the received component, and sacrifices, i.e. the

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given component”. However, the value is individualistic and personal. It can beconsidered from various aspects, and such value is evaluated as high or low dependingon individual subjective assessment. Most previous studies have examined perceivedvalue as a substitute for actual value (Tam, 2004). Zeithaml (1988) defined perceivedvalue as “the consumer’s overall assessment of the utility of a product based onperceptions of what is received and what is given”.

Moreover, quality is considered as the received component in the originalvalue-intention framework. Perceived quality can be defined as consumer assessmentregarding the global excellence or superiority of a product (Holbrook, 1996). Perceivedquality can be inferred as intrinsic and extrinsic cues. Intrinsic cues involve thephysical composition of products such as color, flavor, and texture. Meanwhile,extrinsic cues are product-related but not part of the physical product itself, such asbrand, advertising, and store image (Teas and Agarwal, 2000).

Sacrifice describes what must be given up or paid to perform a certain behavior. Inthe hedonic consumption decision process, price is what a customer pays in moneyterm for a product obtaining. Therefore, price is often used as the key measure torepresent what customers have to sacrifice to gain a product. Tam (2004) showed thatthe more monetary cost customers perceived they have to pay in acquiring products,the lower value they have perceived.

Since previous research has demonstrated the multidimensional andcontext-dependent nature of perceived value, the constructs of the initial modelchange with the circumstances of online music purchase. This study examinedperceived benefit as a substitute for perceived quality to assess the gain while listeningto online music. The perceived benefit is based on intrinsic attributes of online musicsuch as usefulness and playfulness; moreover, the price and effort are considered asmonetary and non-monetary sacrifices respectively. Finally, consumer’s willingness tobuy is influenced by perceived value of customers; further, perceived value can beboosted by increasing the benefit or by reducing the sacrifices associated with productpurchase and use.

Research modelThe research model (see Figure 1) adapted from the value-intention frameworkidentifies key factors that influence perceived value and purchase intention of early

Figure 1.Research model of onlinemusic purchase behavior


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adopters in an online music setting. The construct relationships among thesehypotheses are elaborated below.

Purchase intention and perceived valuePerceived value is the core variable in the research model. Since perceived value isbased on an overall assessment of the costs and benefits of a given market offering in aparticular customer application, it reflects the net gain obtained by consumers fromtheir consumption behavior (Zeithaml, 1988). Previous studies have provided sufficientevidence for the positive influence of perceived value on consumer willingness-to-buy(Zeithaml, 1988; Sweeney et al., 1997; Dodds et al., 1991). Thus, perceived valueprovides a useful indicator of intention to purchase online music.

This study defines perceived value as the consumer perception of net benefit gainedin exchange for the sacrifices while listening to online music. Moreover, purchaseintention is defined in this study as the degree to which the consumer would like topurchase online music in the future. The following hypothesis is proposed:

H1. Perceived value is positively related to purchase intentions towards onlinemusic.

Perceived benefitIndividuals assess value based on the net gain of utility between what benefits arereceived and what sacrifices are incurred by performing the behavior. The originalvalue-intention framework considered the perceived quality as the get-component inassessing value. Perceived quality is inferred according to the physical component ofproduct and product-related attributes. In the context of online music, the matter thatneeds to be understood is the utility of consumers when listening to online music ratherthan physical components or product-related attributes. Consequently, this studyconsiders that perceived benefit substitutes for quality to measure the gains fromonline consumer’s view. Consistent with previous literature on consumer behaviors,the research model comprises two benefit dimensions, including functional andrecreational benefits (Childers et al., 2001), for predicting the benefits perceived byonline consumers. In the online music setting, functional benefit refers to as theperceived usefulness construct, while recreational benefit refers to as the perceivedplayfulness construct.

Perceived usefulnessPerceived usefulness is defined by focusing functional and convenience benefits. Thisstudy defined perceived usefulness as the degree to which the consumer believes thatlistening to music online would fulfill the certain purpose. Although online music websites aim to provide people with an entertaining experience, they also providefunctional benefits to them. For example, online music web sites provide morediversiform music works and quicker search service to online users than traditionalmusic stores do. In fact, effectively accessing music and relevant information hasbecome one of the key benefits sought by online music consumers. Hence, this studybelieves that perceived value will increase with perceived usefulness of online music.The following hypothesis is proposed:

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H2. Perceived usefulness is positively related to perceived value in online musicsetting.

Perceived playfulnessSince perceived playfulness focuses on recreational benefit, this study definedperceived playfulness as the degree to which the consumer believes that enjoymentcould be derived when listening to online music. For example, according to Holbrookand Hirschman (1982), listening to music is a kind of hedonic consumption acts basednot on consumer knowledge of reality, but rather on consumer desires. Additionally,Lacher (1989) indicates that people who listen to music is seeking for fantasyfulfillment and deep emotional stimulation. Consequently, this study believes thatperceived value will increase with perceived playfulness. The following hypothesis isproposed:

H3. Perceived playfulness is positively related to perceived value in online musicsetting.

Perceived sacrificePerceived sacrifice is defined as individual feeling regarding giving something up(Dodds, 1999). When making decisions with regard to online music purchase, onlineconsumers certainly consider both monetary and non-monetary costs. Price isfrequently used as the key measure representing what consumers have to pay moneyto obtain a product. Nevertheless, individuals do not always remember actual productprices, and previous studies have revealed that consumers encode prices meaningfully(Monroe, 1973). Consequently, researchers have reached a consensus that monetarycosts should be used to measure perceived price encoded by consumers instead ofusing actual product prices (Monroe, 1973).

On the other hand, research on consumer behavior indicates that other costs arerelevant to consumers. For example, Lovelock (2001) incorporated non-monetary cost,such as physical or psychological efforts, in consumer perceptions of sacrifice.Therefore, in an online music setting, perceived ease of use captures the non-monetarycost and the associated instrumentality.

Perceived priceEconomically rational shoppers generally see price as an important financial costcomponent (Zeithaml, 1988). Previous studies found that price increases, perceptions ofvalue would decline (Kwon and Schumann, 2001). Dodds (1999) pointed out if a price isunacceptable, consumers will then assess the product with little or without net value.Indeed, seeking the best price is a key motivation of online consumers (Swatman et al.,2006). This study defines perceived price as the degree to which the consumer believesthat he/she must pay in money to obtain online music. Consequently, the followinghypothesis is proposed:

H4. Perceived price is negatively related to perceived value in online musicsetting.


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Perceived ease of useNon-monetary sacrifice must be acknowledged. Numerous previous works foundnon-monetary sacrifice to be an important influence on acceptance of hedonic-orientedIT. Atkinson and Kydd (1997) found significant effects of ease of use on the Internetusage for entertainment. van der Heijden (2004) found that perceived ease of use is asignificant predicator of adoption intention for hedonic-oriented IT. This study definesperceived ease of use as the degree to which the consumer believes that listening toonline music is effortless. Accordingly, this study believes if online consumers perceivethat they can reduce effort, namely reduce perceived sacrifice, an increase in value canthen be achieved. The following hypothesis is proposed:

H5. Perceived ease of use is positively related to perceived value in online musicsetting.

Difference between online music potential and actual purchasersTo enhance understanding and management of online music potential and actualpurchasers, this study examined whether the antecedents of perceived value willchange over time during the purchase process. The purchasers refer to the person thathave already bought online music, and the potential purchasers refer to the person whoare enthusiastic about purchasing online music, but have not bought yet.

Many studies have empirically examined the factors that lead to the initial adoptionand subsequent continued usages of IT at the individual adopter level are difference(Karahanna et al., 1999). Furthermore, researches on consumer behavior have providedsome evidence for indicated differences in the determinants of initial and continuedpurchase intention (Cao and Gruca, 2004). Therefore, the following hypothesis isproposed:

H6. The determinants of perceived value of online music purchasers are differentfrom the determinants of potential purchasers.

Research methodThis study is known as a hypothesis-testing research in which deduction is applied totest theories so as to create new experiences or observations and which mainly relies onquantitative, empirical methods (Kothari, 1985; Kumar, 2005; Lucas, 1991). Moreover,because of following two causes, a sample survey is the most appropriate approach tothe problem of this study. First, this study aims at quantitative explanation asks aboutthe individual behavior of Taiwanese society. Second, the sample must be relativelylarge and representative to allow generalizing findings to a predefined population(Pinsonneault and Kraemer, 1993; Kothari, 1985). The essential procedures inconducting a sample survey research are described as following.

Measurement developmentThe questionnaires were mainly adapted from relevant prior studies and carefullymodified to reflect the characteristics of online music. Scale items for purchaseintention, the perceived value and price were adapted from marketing survey (Doddset al., 1991; Sweeney et al., 1997; Tam, 2004); scale items for perceived usefulness,playfulness, and ease of use were from IT acceptance studies (Davis, 1989; van derHeijden, 2004). All scale items were measured via a five-point Likert scale, ranging

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from highly agree (point 5) to lowly disagree (point 1). The initial questionnaire waspre-tested on nine doctoral students, and five graduate students majoring ine-commerce to check the suitability of the wording and format. Furthermore, a pilottest was conducted on 128 college students to validate the instrument. Both of the testswith slightly changes in wording were made. A list of the items is displayed in Table I.

Scale Source of measure

Perceived usefulness van der Heijden (2004); Davis (1989)PU1 I can better decide which music I want to listen to

than in the pastPU2 I can acquire music information more easily through

the online music web sitesPU3 The online music web sites provide a variety of

musicPU4 Overall, I find online music web sites is useful

Perceived playfulness van der Heijden (2004)PL1 I enjoy the course of listening to online musicPL2 Listening to online music makes me feel pleasantPL3 When listening to online music, I feel excitingPL4 Overall, I found online music is interesting

Perceived price Sweeney et al. (1997); Tam (2004)PR1 The price for online music is a lot of money to spendPR2 The price for online music is much more than I

expectedPR3 What I would expect to pay for online music is highPR4 In general, I find listening online music would cost

me a lot of money

Perceived ease of use van der Heijden (2004); Davis (1989)PE1 My interaction with online music web site is clear

and understandsPE2 Learning how to listen to online music would be easy

for mePE3 It would be easy for me to become skillful at listening

to online musicPE4 In general, I found online music web site is easy to

use

Perceived value Dodds et al. (1991)PV1 The online music is valuable for mePV2 I would consider that online music to be a good valuePV3 The online music service is considered to be a good

buy

Purchase intention Dodds et al. (1991)PI1 The likelihood that I would pay for online music is

highPI2 My willingness to buy online music is very highPI3 In near future, I would consider purchasing online

music

Table I.Measurement of

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Data collectionAn online questionnaire survey was used to collect data. It was employed for tworeasons. First, the subjects of this study are those persons interested in online musicand are familiar with the Internet so an online questionnaire survey may relativelytarget at them. Second, usage of online survey in social science research has increasedin recent years because of several strengths such as low cost, widespread reach, speed,convenience, and ease of data entry and analysis (Cheong and Park, 2005; Evans andMathur, 2005; Johnson, 2006).

A message asking participant to fill out the questionnaire in terms of any paidonline music web sites which they had used or known, along with a hyperlink to thesurvey form, was posted in 30 popular music-related forum web sites, such as Yahoo,Kimo (http://tw.yahoo.com), Hinet (www.hinet.net), KKBOX (http://kkbox.com.tw),music power (www.musicpower.com.tw), KKCITY (http://bbs.kkcity.com.tw), andcampus Bulletin Board Systems in Taiwan over a two-week period. To increase theresponse rate, we offered participants who completely filled out the questionnaire anopportunity to take park in a draw for several prizes as an incentive. At the same timethe atypical cases, repeated responses were controlled.

Data analysis and resultsThe online survey yielded 312 responses, of them, 302 were complete and valid. Intotal, 68 percent of the respondents were female, and 91 percent were below 30 yearsold. Subject occupations ranged widely, but over three-fourths of the respondents werestudents. Students dominate the majority of the sample, because they are the mainconsumers in the music market of Taiwan. Moreover, of the final sample, 206 werefrom purchasers of online music and 96 were from potential purchasers. Table II liststhe demographic statistics of all samples and groupings.

Test of the measurement modelThe data collected were tested for measures of fit by confirmatory factor analysis usingLISREL 8.51. The measurement model includes 22 items describing six latentconstructs. The test of the measurement model demonstrated good fit between the dataand the proposed measurement model. The chi-square for the measurement model wascalculated to be 372.51 (P ¼ 0:00) with 194 d.f. The x 2=df value was 1.92, less than thethree criteria suggested by Hayduck (1987). The GFI here was 0.90, which is equal tothe benchmark. The various goodness-of-fit statistics are summarized in Table III. Insummary, the measurement model has a good fit with the data, based on assessmentcriteria such as GFI, CFI, NFI, RMSEA and RMR (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988).

To confirm the adequacy of the measurement model, reliability and constructvalidity were considered. First, computing the individual item reliabilities, the loadingswere greater than 0.7, expect for PE1 did not lie well on their underlying constructs.The loading of PE1 was 0.68, very close to 0.7, for this reason, all scare items wereremained (see Table IV).

Campbell and Fiske (1959) proposed two aspects of construct validity: convergentand discriminant validity. Convergent validity is the degree to which multiple attemptsto measure the same concept is in agreement. The notion is that two or more measuresof the same thing should correlate highly if they are valid measures of the concept.Both the coefficients of composite reliability and average variance extracted (AVE)

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were tested for convergent validity. Composite reliability assessed the internalconsistency of the measurement model. All constructs had a higher compositereliability (see Table V) than the benchmark of 0.6 recommended by Bagozzi and Yi(1988). It suggests that a high internal reliability of the data existed. The AVE indicateswhat percentage of the variance of the construct any individual item explains. Allconstructs have AVE higher than the benchmark of 0.5 recommended by Fornell andLarcker (1981) (see Table V); therefore, it was concluded that the items adequatelyexplained the variance. Consequence, examine with composite reliability and AVEverified that a high convergent validity existed in the constructs.

Discriminant validity is the degree to which measures of different concepts aredistinct. The thought is that if two or more concepts are unique, then valid measures ofeach should not correlate too highly. The data demonstrated that the shared variancesamong variables, the values present under diagonal in Table V, were less than thevariances extracted by the constructs, the values present on the diagonals in Table V.

All samplesn ¼ 302

Purchasersn ¼ 206

Purchasersn ¼ 206

Characteristics Frequency (%) Frequency (%) Frequency (%)

GenderMale 96 (32) 31 (32) 65 (32)Female 206 (68) 65 (68) 151 (68)

Age groupLess than 20 166 (55) 42 (44) 124 (60)21-30 108 (36) 37 (39) 71 (34)31-40 20 (6) 10 (10) 10 (5)41-51 6 (2) 5 (5) 1 (1)Over 50 2 (1) 2 (2) 0 (0)

EducationJunior high school or less 3 (1) 3 (3) 0 (0)High school 80 (27) 20 (21) 60 (29)College 195 (65) 60 (63) 135 (66)Graduate school 24 (8) 13 (13) 11 (5)

OccupationStudent 232 (77) 66 (69) 166 (81)Information engineer 17 (6) 5 (5) 12 (6)Government staff 18 (6) 9 (9) 9 (4)Business staff 25 (8) 10 (11) 15 (7)Other 10 (3) 6 (6) 4 (2)

Table II.Profile of the respondents

Fit indices for the measurement model of the research modelx 2 ¼ 372:51 (P ¼ 0:00), df ¼ 194, x 2=df ¼ 1:92, GFI ¼ 0:90, CFI ¼ 0:97, NFI ¼ 0:94,RMSEA ¼ 0:052, RMR ¼ 0:032

Fit indices for the structural model of the research modelx 2 ¼ 405:66ðP ¼ 0:00Þ, df ¼ 198; x 2=df ¼ 2:05, GFI ¼ 0:89, CFI ¼ 0:97, NFI ¼ 0:94,RMSEA ¼ 0:057, RMR ¼ 0.039

Table III.Fit indices of the

research model


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These certify that constructs are empirically distinct. In conclusion, the statisticalresults indicated that the test of the measurement model including convergent anddiscriminant validity measures was satisfactory.

Test of the structural modelThe causal structure of the proposed research model was also tested. The test of thestructural model demonstrated reasonable fit between the data and the proposedstructural model. The estimation of the structural model yields a chi-square of 405.66(P ¼ 0:00) with 198 d.f. The x2=df value was 2.05. The GFI provides evidence of areasonably fitting model (GFI ¼ 0:89); therefore, all other indices are within therecommended range of acceptability. Consequently, the structural model demonstratedgood fit to the data. The various goodness-of-fit statistics are summarized in Table III.

Hypothesis testingFigure 2 illustrates the results of the research model with non-significant paths asdotted lines, and the standardized path coefficients between the constructs. Most of thehypotheses (H1, H2, H3, and H5) were significant in SEM prediction, except forperceived ease of use (H4).

Measurement item Factor loading Measurement item Factor loading

Perceived usefulness Perceived ease of usePU1 0.87 PE1 0.68PU2 0.84 PE2 0.88PU3 0.87 PE3 0.91PU4 0.84 PE4 0.85Perceived playfulness Perceived valuePL1 0.89 PV1 0.90PL2 0.92 PV2 0.92PL3 0.89 PV3 0.85PL4 0.91 Purchase intentionPerceived price PI1 0.91PR1 0.79 PI2 0.94PR2 0.88 PI3 0.91PR3 0.91PR4 0.87

Table IV.Measurement item factorloading

Mean (SD) Composite reliability PU PL PR PE PV PI

Perceived usefulness (PU) 3.97 (0.86) 0.91 0.73Perceived playfulness (PL) 3.83 (0.89) 0.95 0.47 0.81Perceived price (PR) 3.06 (1.01) 0.92 0.12 0.21 0.75Perceived ease of use (PE) 4.20 (0.69) 0.90 0.14 0.13 0.02 0.70Perceived value (PV) 3.17 (0.99) 0.93 0.26 0.33 0.52 0.03 0.81Purchase intention (PI) 3.05 (1.10) 0.94 0.26 0.41 0.49 0.05 0.69 0.85

Note: Diagonals represent the AVE, while the shared variances (the squared correlation) presentunder diagonal

Table V.Mean, compositereliability, AVE andsquare of correlationbetween each construct

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To examine whether purchasers and potential purchasers differ in their determinantsof perceived value of online music, the path analyses for purchasers and potentialpurchasers were examined. The path coefficients and explained variances for themodel are shown in Figures 3 and 4 respectively. The results displayed that thedeterminants of perceived value for purchasers are different from the determinants ofpotential purchasers. Consequently, the empirical evidence supports H6.

DiscussionThere were two major research questions in this study. The first question was toexamine what are the key factors identified by early adopters of online music in

Figure 2.Results of the proposedmodel (for all samples)

Figure 4.Results for purchasers

Figure 3.Results for potential

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Taiwan. Based on data collected from 302 online music consumers, the resultscorrespond to the first question. Purchase intentions of early adopters of online musiccan be predicted reasonably well according to perceived value of online music.Moreover, perceived usefulness, playfulness, and price are the key determinants ofperceived value of online music. The second question was to examine whether thosedeterminants considering in the purchase process are different between purchasersand potential purchasers. The analytical results indicate perceived playfulness andprice are crucial for potential purchasers, while perceived usefulness, playfulness, andprice are crucial for purchasers. The determinants of perceived value may change overtime during the purchase process. The significant findings supported by this empiricalstudy are discussed as follows.

The valuation of online music is significant influenced by individual perceptionsregarding benefit and sacrifice. In terms of benefit, perceived playfulness is asignificant predictor of perceived value of online music. This finding is consistent withthe previous hedonic-oriented IT studies (Hsu and Lu, 2004; van der Heijden, 2004).Furthermore, perceived usefulness is another significant predicator of purchaseintention. Although some studies have proposed that usefulness loses its dominantpredictive value in favor of playfulness (van der Heijden, 2004) in hedonic-oriented ITacceptance field. In accordance with research by Koufaris (2002), the significance ofperceived usefulness shows that utilitarian value remains important even when thebehavior in question does not involve system usage inside the workplace.

In relation to sacrifice, the results demonstrate that price significantly influencesonline music purchase decisions, as indicated by the path coefficient of 20.63(p , 0:001). In accordance with research on consumer behavior (Venkatesh andBrown, 2001), this study found that high price is the key inhibitor of purchasewillingness. As for ease of use of online music web sites, though it is logical to assumethat users would like to use the IT only if they found it is easy-to-use, perceived ease ofuse did not appear to drive perceived value. There are two explanations of the unusualresult. The nature of the study participants may be one reason. Most participatorspossessed two special characteristics, they were students, and they were aged below 30years old. Most study participants had taken a couple of computer related classes, andthus they have no difficulties in using the online music web sites. The construct ofperceived ease of use score displays a high mean of 4.2 on a five-point scale, and a lowvariance of 0.69 (see Table V). The other reason is that, according to assertion of TAM,perceived usefulness is more important than perceived ease of use in determiningwhether or not to use a technology (Cheong and Park, 2005; King and He, 2006).Moreover, Davis (1989) proposed the causal chain of ease of use – usefulness – usage,that being so some studies found that ease of use is not a determinant of predicted use(Keil et al., 1995; Lucas and Spitler, 1999; Subramanian, 1994).

Another important finding was that purchasers and potential purchasers differ inthe set of determinants underlying the perceptions of the value of online music.Specifically, perceived playfulness and price are significant for potential purchaserswhile perceived usefulness, playfulness and price are significant for purchasers. As forperceived benefit, playfulness considerations are important for both purchasers andpotential purchasers. Early adopters of online music are willing to purchase onlinemusic merely when they perceive that online music web sites are likely to fulfill theiremotional and affective demands either purchasers or potential purchasers. Usefulness

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is a significant determinant of perceived value for purchasers, but not for potentialpurchasers. Therefore, this result may reveal that following purchasing online music,what may become salient are more rational considerations such as the selection ofmusic available, and the effectiveness of acquiring music using online music web sites.As for perceived sacrifice, perceived price was important for both purchasers andpotential purchasers. Potential purchasers may purchase online music only when theyperceive an adequate monetary price; on the other hand, price remains a veryimportant determinant of willingness to make continued purchase decision forpurchasers.

Conclusion and implicationsIt is increasingly important for IS researchers to have a clear look at how consumersmake the decision of whether to adopt a hedonic-oriented IT or not. In terms of thehedonic-oriented IT consumer as a hedonic product consumer and an IT user, thisstudy established a theoretical model integrated the value-intention framework withtechnology acceptance model, and applied it to the online music context.

The findings of this study have important implications to hedonic-oriented ITacceptance researches. First, the results demonstrated that intention to purchase onlinemusic can be predicted by using the proposed model (R 2 ¼ 0:82). Consequently, unlikeutilitarian-oriented IT acceptance behaviors would be examined well by the theory inlight of belief-attitude-intention-behavior, this study suggests that thebelief-value-intention-based theory should be applied to understand hedonic-orientedIT adoption behaviors. Second, this study revealed that researchers should be aware ofthe importance of perceived price, which previous studies have found to occasionallybe a predicator of hedonic-oriented IT adoption decision. While IT usage increasinglyoccurs outside the workplace, perceived price should be seriously and carefullyconsidered by decision makers as a determinant in the adopted decision forhedonic-oriented IT.

The results of this study also have several important implications for practitionersof online music web sites in Taiwan. First, perceived value explained 82 percent of thevariation purchase intention, and the three constructs, perceived playfulness,usefulness, and price, accounted for 74 percent of the variation in perceived value.Thus, online music web site practitioners, on one hand, have to raise online musicconsumers’ perceptions of playfulness and usefulness; on the other hand, lowerperceptions of price.

Second, since online music purchasers and potential purchasers generally considerprice as a necessary part of sacrifice, and comparing price between different-alternativevia the Internet is effortless and speedy, pricing strategies are vitally important for website practitioners in the online music market of Taiwan. In terms of potentialpurchasers, online music practitioners should create preferable business models tooffer attractive and realistic price to them. As for purchasers, online musicpractitioners should identify and segment their customers to offer segment-specificprices to individual customer as a reward for loyalty. Moreover, online musicpractitioners should carefully monitor competitor-pricing strategies to enable them torapidly respond to market changes.

Third, to cater to purchaser perceptions of playfulness, online music web sites couldtry to determine what music each customer prefers, and then offer individually


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customized music collection. Additionally, web sites should increase opportunities topotential purchasers to listen to online music, such as free-trial programs, to enablethem to perceive more playfulness.

Finally, as for purchasers, usefulness would influence continuing purchase onlinemusic; thus, online music web site practitioners should provide functional benefit byestablishing alliances with music companies to enrich and diversify music works, andshould improve technological infrastructure to increase efficiency of informationsearch and data transmission.

Limitations and suggestions for future researchAlong with the study, a couple of limitations apparently emerged. The first limitationis that this study focused on early adopters of online music in Taiwan who have beenalready purchased or are enthusiastic about purchasing online music, but took noconsideration about non-users who did not adopt in the near future and about peoplewho had purchased once and decided not to purchase again. In the future, researchescan be dedicated to the research of other adopter categories to increase the wholeinsight into the online music market.

Cultural differences could represent a second limitation of this study. Online musicconsumers from different cultures may exhibit considerable differences in valueformation and technology assessment. Future efforts at examining the differences ofthe determinants of hedonic-oriented IT adoption between Taiwanese people andNorthern American or Europeans should attempt to gain in-depth understanding whyuptake of online music market of Taiwan had been much slower than NorthernAmerica and Europe markets.

The third limitation is in the area of sampling bias due to the subjects of this studywere self-selected. Fortunately, the sample characteristics in the present study are thesame as those of the main online music consumer in Taiwan; therefore the sample isstill representative of Taiwanese online music consumers.

Final, this study also suggests that future works can examine how perceivedplayfulness, usefulness, and price are influenced by external factors, such as web sitecharacteristics, and individuals’ personalities to improve understanding of how onlinemusic services are used.

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About the authorsChing-Wen Chu is a PhD candidate at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology,and is working as an instructor for the Kang-Ning Journal College of Medical Care andManagement. She received the BS degree and MBA degree from National Taiwan University ofScience and Technology, Taiwan, in 1993 and 1996 respectively. Her research interests includemanagement information systems, electronic commerce and Internet marketing. Ching-Wen Chuis the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

Hsi-Peng Lu is a Professor of Information Management at National Taiwan University ofScience and Technology. He received the BS degree from Tung-Hai University, Taiwan, in 1973,the MS degree from National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan, in 1987, and the PhD and MS inIndustrial Engineering from University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1992 and 1991 respectively.His research interests are in electronic commerce, managerial decision-making, and managementinformation systems. His work has appeared in journals such as International Journal ofTechnology Management, Omega, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal ofComputer Information Systems, Management Decision, Information System Management,International Journal of Information Management, and Information and Management. He alsoworks as a consultant for many organizations in Taiwan.


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Factors influencing online music purchase intention in Taiwan