Organizations' use of mobile internet: adoption factors and impacts on performance

Recently, the integration of Internet and mobile technologies has been a worldwide phenomenon, culminating in the emergence of another technology called Mobile Internet (MI). Although this has received interest from executives and academics, there is little known about the adoption of this technology in organizations. Thus, we aimed to identify the main reasons that organizations adopt MI and analyze the perceived effects of MI use on organizational performance. The study was characterized as an exploratory quantitative research conducted with 96 firms from Rio Grande do Sul state in Brazil. We used the IT adoption model proposed by Lunardi, Dolci and Maçada (2010) as the main foundation. Results suggest MI adoption is influenced by three distinct factors: perceived usefulness, organizational readiness and competitive pressures, whereby perceived usefulness is the primary motivator. Regarding the perceived effects of MI use on organizational performance, we found that MI primarily increases productivity, but also attracts new customers, increases sales and reduces operating costs.