Do Hedonic and Utilitarian Apps Differ in Consumer Appeal? Bidyut Hazarika ✉ , Jiban Khuntia, Madhavan Parthasarathy, and Jahangir Karimi ( ) Business School, University of Colorado Denver, 1475 Lawrence Street, Denver, CO 80202, USA {bidyut.hazarika,jiban.khuntia,madhavan.parthasarathy, jahangir.karimi}@ucdenver.edu Abstract. This research in progress suggests that hedonic and utilitarian mobile applications (apps) differ in consumer appeal. We operationalize consumer appeal through addiction, frustration and consumer value perception. The interplay of frustration in the presence of a set of addicted customers is interesting, as many apps may have an addicted consumer baser-specifically for games, communica‐ tions of or entertainment apps. Consumer frustration may act as a negative complementing factor to consumer addiction, and this substitution effect is argued to be higher for hedonic products than utilitarian products. Hypotheses are drawn and a methodology is suggested. Possible implications and contributions are discussed. Keywords: Consumer addiction · Consumer frustration · Digital products · Apps · Hedonic · Utilitarian · Consumer evaluation 1 Introduction Continuous development in mobile technologies and related applications (apps) has emerged to converge in the apps market space. Starting with a handful of apps in 2008, the Apple Store has more than a million apps for sale in 2015. Similar trends are observed in the Android and Microsoft apps stores as well. Many companies are using mobile apps as traditional trade channels. Revenue from app users is projected to increase from $10.3 billion in 2013 to $25.2 billion in 2017 [5]. In this study, we propose to explore how hedonic and utilitarian apps differ in consumer appeal. We posit that consumer appeal is reflected by addiction, frustration and value perception, amongst other factors. We ask the research question how the relationships of consumer addiction and frustration on consumer evaluation is differen‐ tiated by hedonic and utilitarian apps. Based on prior studies [13], we denote the term hedonic to those apps that “aim to provide self-fulfilling value to the user”; whereas utilitarian apps “aim to provide instrumental value to the user”. A conceptual model is suggested with possible avenues for data collection and research execution. Possible contributions and implications are discussed. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 V. Sugumaran et al. (Eds.): WEB 2015, LNBIP 258, pp. 233–237, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-45408-5_28 234 2 B. Hazarika et al. Conceptual Development and Hypotheses Existing information systems has differentiated the hedonic and utilitarian use of infor‐ mation technology, through the lens of usage behavior as a result from a reasoned appraisal of pre-adoption beliefs of the IT artifact [9]. A few studies have extended the hedonic and/or utilitarian lens to mobile computing (e.g. [11]) and other general IT products (e.g. [8]). Addiction is the use of something for relief, comfort, or simulation, and which often continues in part, due to cravings when it is absent and has affected people’s life in various ways and some people may require treatment [14]. When someone becomes dependent on a certain type of technology and have to use it repeatedly, it becomes a behavioral addiction [4]. The existence of such addiction to digital artifacts has been proven by Turel and Serenko [10]. Addiction is a trait when a consumer gets obsessed with a certain product and keeps using it repeatedly over and over again. In case of apps, if a consumer keeps checking an app repeatedly to check its content, we can classify them as addiction. This repeated use of the app leads to eventual addiction of the consumer. Consumer addiction indicates not only the liking of consumers for an app due to its appeal, function or on the attribute to meet a specific unique need; but also that the app has the potential to be sustained in the market due to a set of addicted consumers. For example, a fitness app would have a good appeal for the consumer segment that want to stay fit, and hence, would have generated a set of consumers who use and get addicted to it. These addicted consumers would then derive higher benefits, be testers, will work towards the improvement of the app by providing feedback and in general help in mitigating the aspects related to the frustration technology issues. The features such as an app having a great design, inte‐ gration, functionality contributes towards the addiction. An app in a work place works smoothly as advertised can lead to greater productivity and utilization from its workers resulting in good evaluations, leading to positive word of mouth and better customer evaluation. Consumer frustration is the result of the failure a consumer faces when a technology fails to achieve its desired task. In an individual level, consumer frustration can be defined as the negative emotion due to an unsuccessful use of a technology [1]. In case of an app, the main cause of consumer frustration is inaccurate description, not enough engagement, not user friendly, crash and other usage problems. Consumer frustration leads to dissatisfaction, and loss of self-efficacy and eventually lead to consumer unin‐ stalling the app and leaving a bad review. Consumer frustration may also lead to disrup‐ tion in workplace, slow functionalities and not using the app [6] or also may lead to high levels of anxiety and anger on part of the user [12] eventually leading the user to stay away from the technology [7]. As pointed out by Guchait and Namasivayan [2], all the above mentioned factors create a bad response for the technology in the market. Consumer frustration deals with the negative emotions that individuals feel with the use of technology. In the context of apps, if an app doesn’t perform as it is supposed to, it leads to consumers discontinuing the app, or being dissatisfied by the app. The performance of the app in this study is based on the factors such as crash, design, usage, integration and functionality issues. Prior studies note that consumer frustration leads Do Hedonic and Utilitarian Apps Differ in Consumer Appeal? 235 to loss of the users’ self-efficacy and subsequent personal dissatisfaction. For example, when the user used an app for a game or to stream a movie, and the app fails or crashes; then it leads to discontinuation of the game or the movie, leading to dissatisfaction of the user. Similarly, an apartment finder app, or a business networking app, if do not work properly as desired, lead to failure of the business and loss of productivity and revenue. Often the resulting negative word-of-mouth from dissatisfied users will lead to less adoption of the app which in turn will lead to decrease the consumer evaluation of the app, finally leading to the death of the app. Prior studies (e.g. [2, 3]) note that the frus‐ tration felt by consumers when shared in a public forum creates a negative image of the product in the market. Based on the discussions in the existing literature, as elaborated in previous para‐ graphs, we develop a conceptual model for this study. Figure 1 below shows the proposed conceptual model. We posit that addiction and frustration have direct effects on consumer evaluation of an app. However, these direct effects being not so surprising, we do not hypothesize those, and focus on the differentiating hypotheses of hedonic and utilitarian apps. Fig. 1. Conceptual model When people decide to use an app, it can be due to two values: utilitarian and hedonic behavior. Utilitarian behavior is more relational and task related. We classify utilitarian apps as those apps that are used by consumers in an effective manner. For example, apps that are downloaded to track finances, medical records are all classified as utilitarian apps: apps that are used to achieve certain tasks. Hedonic apps on the other hand are apps that are used for fun and playfulness vs. task completion. Thus, we posit that hedonic apps are mostly used by consumers for entertainment value such as: arousal, heightened involvement, perceived freedom, fantasy fulfillment and escapism. Hedonic apps will have more success as they are more likely to be used more often compared to utilitarian apps. The degree of addiction will also be high for these apps as well. If hedonic apps works seamlessly, the consumer evaluation will be much higher as people would have greater evaluation for these apps. In case of utilitarian apps, people use them only to achieve certain task and not for its enjoyment value. So, if a utilitarian app crashes or have technical glitches, consumer will be more forgiving compared to a hedonic app. Based on these arguments, we hypothesize that: 236 B. Hazarika et al. H1a: The positive effect of consumer addiction on consumer evaluation is higher for hedonic apps than utilitarian apps. H1b: The negative effect of consumer frustration on consumer evaluation is higher for hedonic apps than utilitarian apps. 3 Proposed Method and Discussion This research in progress suggests to collect secondary data for several weeks, code the variables using text mining and analyze the data using econometric methods. We expect to find support for the hypotheses. We also plan to conduct a set of robustness tests to validate our findings. This study aims to report the findings on whether consumer frustration has a negative association on consumer evaluation, whether the interaction of addiction and frustration has differentiating effects on consumer evaluation for hedonic and utilitarian apps. The findings would inform managers to focus on design aspects, such as app designs can be oriented to have more “hedonist” design aspects, even though they have utilitarian value. Further, the study would inform managers that technical design and integration plays a highly valuable role in consumer acceptance of the app. Finally, as much as an app’s release is important, taking feedback from consumers and tracking evaluation regularly (almost on a daily basis) is critical for an app’s success. In terms of research contributions, this study as of now is the first one to explore the comparative effects of consumer behavioral factors associated with apps adoption; with a set of nuanced variables such as addiction, frustration associated with hedonic and utilitarian apps. Further, indirectly this study identifies the important role of design and evaluation factors associated with IT business value, specifically in the apps market context. Moreover, it also informs to the vast literature in the marketing on the product feature or aspects that influences consumer evaluation of products. In conclusion, the objective of this study is to explore to what extent consumer addiction and consumer frustration influences consumer evaluation of apps; and how these effects differ across utilitarian and hedonic apps. We propose to analyze secondary data for android apps and to validate the model and hypotheses. This study contributes to the research on the digital business strategy for apps markets. References 1. Bessière, K., Newhagen, J.E., Robinson, J.P., Shneiderman, B.: A model for computer frustration: the role of instrumental and dispositional factors on incident, session, and postsession frustration and mood. Comput. Hum. Behav. 22(6), 941–961 (2006) 2. Guchait, P., Namasivayam, K.: Customer creation of service products: role of frustration in customer evaluations. J. Serv. Market. 26(3), 216–224 (2012) 3. Hazarika, B., Karimi, J., Khuntia, J., Parthasarathy, M.: Consumer Frustration and Consumer Valuation Shift for Mobile Apps: An Exploratory Study (2015) 4. 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