Understanding the Perception of Information System Niche: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Validation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v25i0.2951Keywords:
Niche systems, Perceived niche, Conspicuousness, Uniqueness, Digital extended self, Scale developmentAbstract
The number of niche technologies is growing, and they are getting noticed. However, the usage dynamics of such systems have not been explored. This study introduces the “niche” information systems (IS) construct to differentiate between mainstream and niche technologies and to illustrate how such differences potentially influence a person’s IS usage behavior. We posit that niche-ness is perceptual, and a measurement to gauge an individual’s niche perception in the domain of systems usage is desired. Resting on Optimal Distinctiveness theory, the study develops a novel conceptualization and operationalization of niche technology perceptions, focusing on social networking systems. Our main contribution includes the examination of the typology of the perceived niche, which results in the development and validation of an eight-item instrument for perceived technology niche through three studies. In addition, by placing the construct in a nomological network in a fourth study, we demonstrate that the perceived technology niche construct is related to IS continuance intention.
References
Amaldoss, W., & Jain, S. (2008). Research note—Trading up: A strategic analysis of reference group effects. Marketing Science, 27(5), 932-942.
Bagozzi, R. P., & Heatherton, T. F. (1994). A general approach to representing multifaceted personality constructs: Application to state self‐esteem. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 1(1), 35-67.
Bagozzi, R. P., & Yi, Y. (1988). On the evaluation of structural equation models. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 16(1), 74-94.
Bagozzi, R. (2011). Measurement and meaning in information systems and organizational research: Methodological and philosophical foundations. MIS Quarterly, 35(2), 261-292.
Bajac, H., Palacios, M., & Minton, E.A. (2018). Consumer-brand congruence and conspicuousness: An international comparison. International Marketing Review, 35(3), 498-517.
Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 139-168.
Belk, R. (2018). Ownership: The extended self and the extended object. In Psychological Ownership and Consumer Behavior (pp. 53-67). Springer, Cham.
Berger, J., & Heath, C. (2008). Who drives divergence? Identity signaling, outgroup dissimilarity, and the abandonment of cultural tastes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(3), 593-614.
Bhattacherjee, A. (2001). Understanding information systems continuance: an expectation-confirmation model. MIS Quarterly, 25(3), 351-370.
Brewer, M. B. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(5), 475-482.
Brewer, M. B., & Pickett, C. L. (2014). The Social Self and Group Identification. In: Forgas, J. P. & Williams, K. D. (eds.) The Social Self: Cognitive, Interpersonal, and Intergroup perspectives. Hove, East Sussex: Psychology Press.
Chin, W. W. (1998). The partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling. Modern Methods for Business Research, 295(2), 295-336.
Cho, J. Y., & Suh, J. (2020) Spatial Color Efficacy in Perceived Luxury and Preference to Stay: An Eye-Tracking Study of Retail Interior Environment. Frontiers in Psychology,11 (2), 1-15.
Cohen, J. (1968). Weighted kappa: nominal scale agreement provision for scaled disagreement or partial credit. Psychological Bulletin, 70(4), 213.
Darban, M., & Polites, G. L. (2020). Why Is It Hard to Fight Herding? The Roles of User and Technology Attributes. ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems, 51(4), 93-122.
Davis, F. D. (1989). Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. MIS Quarterly, 13(3), 319-340.
Dogan, V., Ozkara, B. Y., & Dogan, M. (2018). Luxury consumption tendency: conceptualization, scale development and validation. Current Psychology,39, 934-952.
Echols, A., & Tsai, W. (2005). Niche and performance: the moderating role of network embeddedness. Strategic Management Journal, 26(3), 219-238.
Ello Manifesto (2014). Retrieved April 20, 2018, from https://ello.co/wtf/about/ello-manifesto/
Ferraro, R., Escalas, J. E., & Bettman, J. R. (2011). Our possessions, our selves: Domains of self-worth and the possession–self link. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 21(2), 169-177.
Fogliatto, F. S., Da Silveira, G. J., & Borenstein, D. (2012). The mass customization decade: An updated review of the literature. International Journal of Production Economics, 138(1), 14-25.
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39-50.
Franke, N., & Schreier, M. (2008). Product uniqueness as a driver of customer utility in mass customization. Marketing Letters, 19(2), 93-107.
Gierl, H., & Huettl, V. (2010). Are scarce products always more attractive? The interaction of different types of scarcity signals with products' suitability for conspicuous consumption. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 27(3), 225-235.
Jarvis, C. B., MacKenzie, S. B., & Podsakoff, P. M. (2003). A critical review of construct indicators and measurement model misspecification in marketing and consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 30(2), 199-218.
Jetten, J., Spears, R., & Postmes, T. (2004). Intergroup distinctiveness and differentiation: A meta-analytic integration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(6), 862-879.
Kapferer, J. N. (2012). Abundant rarity: The key to luxury growth. Business Horizons, 55(5), 453-462.
Kemp, S. (1998). Perceiving luxury and necessity. Journal of Economic Psychology, 19(5), 591-606.
Lee, Y. J., Hosanagar, K., & Tan, Y. (2015). Do I follow my friends or the crowd? Information cascades in online movie ratings. Management Science, 61(9), 2241-2258.
MacMillan, D. (2012). Lenovo CEO says tablets make up niche market dominated by Apple. Retrieved April 20, 2018, from www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-13/
lenovo-ceo-says-tablets-make-up-niche-market-dominated-by-apple.html.
Maier, C., Laumer, S., Weinert, C., & Weitzel, T. (2015). The effects of technostress and switching stress on discontinued use of social networking services: a study of Facebook use. Information Systems Journal, 25(3), 275-308.
Moore, G. C., & Benbasat, I. (1991). Development of an instrument to measure the perceptions of adopting an information technology innovation. Information Systems Research, 2(3), 192-222.
Nayal, P., & Pandey, N. (2020). Digital coupon redemption: Conceptualization, scale development and validation. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 24(2020), 1-23.
Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric Theory (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Pantzalis, I. (1995). Exclusivity Strategies in Pricing and Brand Extension. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
Parkinson, B., Millard, D. E., O’Hara, K., & Giordano, R. (2018). The digitally extended self: A lexicological analysis of personal data. Journal of Information Science, 44(4), 552-565.
Parrish, E. (2010). Retailers’ use of niche marketing in product development. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, 14 (4), 546-561.
Patsiaouras, G., & Fitchett, J.A. (2012). The evolution of conspicuous consumption. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 4(1), 154-176.
Polites, G. L., & Karahanna, E. (2012). Shackled to the status quo: The inhibiting effects of incumbent system habit, switching costs, and inertia on new system acceptance. MIS Quarterly, 36 (1), pp. 21-42.
Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive Strategy. Free Press: New York.
Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). Free Press: New York.
Roux, E., Tafani, E., & Vigneron, F. (2017). Values associated with luxury brand consumption and the role of gender. Journal of Business Research, 71, 102-113.
Samhan, B. (2018). Revisiting technology resistance: Current insights and future directions. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 22(2018), 1-11.
Schaefers, T. (2014). Standing out from the crowd: niche product choice as a form of conspicuous consumption. European Journal of Marketing, 48(9), 1805-1827.
Sharma R., Yetton P., & Crawford J. (2009). Estimating the effect of common method variance: The method—Method pair technique with an Illustration from TAM Research. MIS Quarterly, 33(3), 473-490.
Shea, C. (2018). Is a social network that doesn’t share user data possible? We asked someone who’s trying. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/conversations/2018/3/27/17168790/
ello-facebook-alternative-data-privacy-cambridge-analytica-deletefacebook.
Snyder, & Fromkin, H. (2012). Uniqueness: The Pursuit of Difference. Plenum: New York, NY.
Straub, D., Boudreau, M. C., & Gefen, D. (2004). Validation guidelines for IS positivist research. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 13(1), 24, 380-427
Tan, T. F., Netessine, S., & Hitt, L. (2017). Is Tom Cruise threatened? an empirical study of the impact of product variety on demand concentration. Information Systems Research, 28(3), 643-660.
Thatcher, J. B., Wright, R. T., Sun, H., Zagenczyk, T. J., & Klein, R. (2018). Mindfulness in information technology use: Definitions, distinctions, and a new measure. MIS Quarterly, 42(3), 831-848.
Venkatesh, V., Morris, M. G., Davis, G. B., & Davis, F. D. (2003). User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly, 27(3), 425-478.
Vigneron, F., & Johnson, L. W. (2017). Measuring Perceptions of Brand Luxury. In Advances in Luxury Brand Management (pp. 199-234). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Villanova, D. (2019). The extended self, product valuation, and the endowment effect. AMS Review, 9(3), 357-371.
Wan, X., Wang, T., & Wu, J. (2018). I'll follow the minority: The effects of sales level on purchase intention of self-expressive products. Frontiers in Psychology, 9(1), 1135-1147.
Wang, C., & Lee, M. K. (2020). Why We Cannot Resist Our Smartphones: Investigating Compulsive Use of Mobile SNS from a Stimulus-Response-Reinforcement Perspective. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 21(1), 175-200.
Whitehead, M. (2020). Why people leave Facebook – and what it tells us about the future of social media. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/why-people-leave-facebook-and-what-it-tells-us-about-the-future-of-social-media-128952
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
AJIS publishes open-access articles distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Non-Commercial and Attribution License which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and AJIS are credited. All other rights including granting permissions beyond those in the above license remain the property of the author(s).
