Factors Affecting the Use of Mobile Recommendation Systems: a Structural Equation Model

The main purpose of this study is to investigate attitudes and behaviors of university students towards mobile recommender systems using a proposed structural equation model (SEM). In the proposed model, expected recommendation quality of mobile recommender systems was defined as the exogenous latent variable, while perceived recommendation quality, enjoyment, collectivism, and attitude were defined as the mediating endogenous latent variables, and behavior was defined as the endogenous latent variable. To this end, the survey developed based on the literature was administered to 416 students from various faculties. The fitness of the proposed structural model was investigated based on various fitness criteria and the model was found to be within acceptable limits. Data analysis showed that expected recommendation quality and perceived recommendation quality were closely related and perceived recommendation quality, user enjoyment, and collectivism positively affected attitudes of students towards mobile recommender systems. Also, it was found that an increase of one unit in students’ positive attitudes towards recommender systems led to an increase of 0.38 units in mobile recommender system use behavior