Exploring Motivations, Constraints, and Perceptions Toward Sport Consumers' Smartphone Usage
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University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-2015 Exploring motivations, constraints, and perceptions toward sport consumers' smartphone usage. Sun J. Kang University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Part of the Educational Leadership Commons Recommended Citation Kang, Sun J., "Exploring motivations, constraints, and perceptions toward sport consumers' smartphone usage." (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2086. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/2086 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. EXPLORING MOTIVATIONS, CONSTRAINTS, AND PERCEPTIONS TOWARD SPORT CONSUMERS’ SMARTPHONE USAGE By Sun J. Kang B.A. University of California Davis, 2002 M.S. Barry University, 2011 M.B.A Barry University, 2011 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Education and Human Development in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Leadership and Organizational Development Department of Leadership, Foundations, and Human Resource Education University of Louisville Louisville, KY May 2015 Copyright 2015 by Sun J. Kang All rights reserved EXPLORING MOTIVATIONS, CONSTRAINTS, AND PERCEPTIONS TOWARD SPORT CONSUMERS’ SMARTPHONE USAGE By Sun J. Kang B.A. University of California Davis, 2002 M.S. Barry University, 2011 M.B.A Barry University, 2011 A Dissertation Approved on April, 9, 2015 By the following Dissertation Committee: ______________________________________________________________ T. Christopher Greenwell, Co-Chair ______________________________________________________________ Marion Hambrick, Co-Chair ______________________________________________________________ Namok Choi _____________________________________________________________ Karen Freberg ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my family. Mom, you always believed in me no matter what I did, and that support got me this far. You taught me everything I know, and I cannot think of any other word than I love you. And Dad, I know that you are always watching over me and I will try my best to make you proud. My sister Hyun, I cannot thank you enough. Throughout my life, I always knew in my heart that you only wished the best for me and without your support I wouldn't have made it this far. You are the best sister I could ever ask for. My sister Min Jung, thank you for always standing by my side, you always made me laugh and understood my feelings when I need it the most. And my brother Min, you stood by my side every step of the way and I always appreciated your friendship, love, and support. I am always grateful to have you all in my life. I would also like to dedicate this dissertation to my wife, Mina Cho. Mina, thank you for being the best wife a man can ask for. You have been, and always will be the joy of my heart. I will always be grateful for all your support throughout my crazy doctoral journey. Thank you for your sacrifice, I love you. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge number of individuals who supported and inspired me to make my dream come true. Dr. Greenwell, thank you for your wisdom, support, and guidance from the day I set my foot in the SPAD building. Thank you for pushing me to be the researcher I am today, without your “so what” questions, I wouldn't have made it this far. Thank you Dr. Marion Hambrick, you have always been there for me, as a professor, as a mentor, as a research partner, and a friend. We’ve been through a lot together, and I will always be grateful for your patience and support. Dr. Namok Choi, you taught me everything I know about research and statistics. You cared for me, prayed for me, and that meant a world to me. I cannot thank you enough for your advice, support, and passion you shared with me. And Dr. Karen Freberg, thank you so much for your expertise and ideas. Your support has made what my dissertation is today, and I am so thankful to have you as a committee member. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Mary Hums for teaching me all the things I need to know about being a doctoral student. I cannot thank you enough for all the time you spent with me trying to sort through my troubling questions. Professor Moorman, thank you for always looking out for me, all your advice were invaluable. Thank you Dr. Meg Hancock for always keeping your door open, you always had answers to my questions. Dr. Megan Shreffler, you have always been very kind to me and I am truly thankful for your support. And, professors Gin Presley and Gary Bernstein, iv thank you for your support, you guys always made me smile. You all were like family to me away from home and I will always be grateful. I would also like to thank my fellow doctoral students and cohort for their unconditional support and research collaborations. Thank you Dr. Maki Itoh, Dr. JaePil Ha, Dr. Tara Mahoney, Chulhwan Choi, Per Svensson, Jason Rice, Matt Huml, Jin Park, Chris Hannah, Alicia Cintron, Jeff Levine, Sam Schmidt, and Dylan Naeger. Thank you, Dae Hyun Hong, Dr.Yong Duk Kim, soon to be Drs. Jungwon Cha and Sungbo Jung for your friendship and unconditional support. Additional thanks to Erica Camp, Michel Ball, Patsy Maguire, Aaron Phillips, and Kelly Ising for all your help. Finally, I would like to thank my best friend, Lindsay Pursglove. Thank you so much for all our late night talks and your unconditional support, I couldn't have done it without you. v ABSTRACT EXPLORING MOTIVATIONS, CONSTRAINTS, AND PERCEPTIONS TOWARD SPORT CONSUMERS’ SMARTPHONE USAGE Sun J. Kang April 9, 2015 Today’s technology trend in the United States is influenced by the growing population of 182.6 million smartphone users (Statista Inc., 2015). The technology trend has also affected the sport consumption behaviors in terms of how they obtain information, share similar interests, and purchase goods in support of their fandom. The range of efforts varies depending on sport consumers’ level of fandom and their technological comfort level towards using a smartphone. Thus, understanding the relationship between sport and technology provides benefits for sport managers to discover innovative ways to further engage current fans and attract new consumers using smartphones. Considering the benefits associated with smartphone technology, the primary purpose of this study was to examine motivations, constraints, and technological perceptions toward smartphones as it relates to sport consumers’ fan identification. Specifically, the study examined (a) primary communication channels (b) factors that influence users (c) factors that prevent users from consuming sport (d) smartphone- specific technological perceptions, and (d) the differences in sport consumers’ vi motivations, constraints, and technological perceptions to follow sport based on sex, age, and fan identification, and (e) factors that predict actual usage, all based on sport consumers’ smartphone usage. Using a cross-sectional survey design, data were collected from the tech-savvy Amazon MTurk users (N = 372) living in the United States. The results of this study revealed three unique factors of motivations (i.e. intrinsic, social, diversion), three factors of constraints (i.e. personal, security, technology), and two factors of technological perceptions (i.e. hedonic, utilitarian) for smartphone usage in sport context. Among these factors, intrinsic motivations, personal constraints, hedonic perceptions and utilitarian perceptions were found to significantly predict actual usage. Further analysis also revealed that sport consumers’ behaviors significantly differed based on the level of fan identification (i.e. high or low). The sport consumers also identified that they connected to the official sites the most followed by sport-related apps, and social media sites. In sports they followed, NFL was ranked the highest, followed by MLB, and NCAA Football, and within these sports, they followed their favorite team the most, leagues the second, and players the third. The result of current study provided a holistic view towards understanding sport consumption behaviors by considering motivations, constraints, and technological perceptions associated with smartphone usage. The information captured in this study is particularly useful when designing a mobile marketing campaign to better engage current fans and attract new fans. In addition, sport managers will be able to further encourage sport consumers’ motivating factors, while reducing the constraining factors by considering technological perceptions of the smartphones. Furthermore, the current vii study’s proposed scale could be used to assess motivations, constraints, and technological perceptions associated with actual usage to reflect upon specific characteristics of the fan identification. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION…………………………………………….………………….……….iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………….…….….iv ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................vi INTRODUCTION………………………………………………….…….…….....……1