The Adoption of Mobile Commerce Service among Employed Mobile Phone Users in Bangladesh: Self-efficacy as a Moderator

Mobile commerce or better known as M-commerce is a fairly new phenomenon in the wake of the second technology wave from the famous E-commerce (electronic commerce) in the 21st century. As the Internet started to proliferate in many parts of the world, the mobile phone penetration in terms of voice communication started to grow rapidly. This simultaneous rapid growth has caused a new phenomenon of convergence of Internet computing and mobile communication where M-commerce has its root. M-commerce has the potential to enhance the work-life within the employed mobile phone users in Bangladesh. The purpose of this study is to examine whether awareness and knowledge, convenience of Mobile devices and WAP/GPRS enabled handsets, pricing and cost, security and privacy, rich and fast information, and perceived usefulness have any influence on the adoption of M-commerce among employed Mobile phone users in two major cities in Bangladesh – Dhaka and Chittagong. A survey method was used to collect data. The findings suggest that pricing and cost, rich and fast information, and security and privacy are significant predictors of the adoption of M-commerce. Self-efficacy is found to be a moderating factor for the adoption of M-commerce services. The findings also suggest that there is no significant gender difference in terms of M-commerce adoption level among mobile users in Bangladesh.