Understanding Users' Adoption Of Multi-screening In China Based On Dual System Perspective Of Self-regulation

We are living in the era dominated by digital screens where most people interact with more than one screens in their daily life.Multi-screening is defined as the use of more than one distinct screens concurrently or sequentially to accomplish related or unrelated tasks.Multi-screening research is a growing concern in today's world which has been rightly realized by Marketing Science Institute which included this domain of research in their top most research priorities for the year 2014-2016 and then again for 2016-2018.Previous literature has not sufficiently explained the user-device relationship in the multi-device context rather it has focused more on users' interactions with the single device.However,in the contemporary environment,our interactions with modern technology have grown tighter and the role of technology in people's life has evolved from facilitating,dominating and influencing to the level where it can change the perceptual and cognitive aspects of human mind.As consequence of enhanced interactive experiences,user behaviors have increased in complexity,the impact of technology has become versatile and there is a greater need of reassessment in order to understand the interplay between users and their multi-screens.The current dissertation study is focused on explaining phenomenon through the perspective of self-regulation.Typically,self-regulation has been seen through eyes of rational reasoning and generally,it is believed that self-regulation only occurs in a deliberative,effortful and conscious manner.However,recent research in social psychology is of the view that self-regulation can also operate automatically without involving conscious effort.The author has developed dual system model of selfregulation as the theoretical basis to investigate individuals' underlying process of goal pursuit in the context of multi-screening.The reflective,conscious and deliberative mode of self-regulation has been coined as conscious self-regulation whereas,the one containing impulsive,automatic and non-conscious processes has been termed as nonconscious self-regulation in this research.Self-regulation is a multidimensional construct and pertaining to the current context author has identified most affluent dimensions of it from past literature.Autonomy,self-efficacy and outcome expectancy have been considered as dimensions of conscious self-regulation while habit and impulsiveness represent nonconscious dimensions of self-regulation.Multi-screening is one of the prominent and rising consumer trends in China,especially in the young generation.The current dissertation study is focused on Gen Y's multi-screening behavior.The reason for choosing younger population as the sample is their higher espousal of multi-screening behavior.The people born between 1980 and 2000 are known as the young generation or Gen Y.Three distinctive studies have been performed in this dissertation research.The first study aims to explain multi-screening in general and without considering particular context of use.Along with investigating the impact of self-regulation on multi-screening,the first study also descriptively analyzed popular multi-screening trends and their implications for the consumer information processing model and marketing communications.The second study focused on the adoption of multi-screening for the sake of multitasking which is also referred to media multitasking.The third part investigated espousal of multi-screening in the online shopping process.This research has opted questionnaire survey method to gather empirical data.Following convenience sampling method data has been collected from people of age between 16 to 36 years.Since the target of the study who are adopters of multi-screening thus the respondents were study were prequalified in this perspective by asking questions about their multi-screening experience.Different samples have been used in aforementioned three separate studies with sample sizes of 408,344 and 388 respectively.To analyze the primary data,this research opted structural equation modeling which has been widely used in social science research.The statistical analysis has been performed using different software packages namely: SPSS,AMOS 23.0 and SmartPLS 3.0.The study adds to the literature by explaining multi-screening behavior regarding its adoption and practices.This is a distinct study of its kind which dealt with multiscreening in various forms comprehensively.It also provided the insightful literature review on the topic which presented the evolution of the multi-screening and its popular trends in the world,and then through primary data,the study described general multiscreening practices in China.The empirical results explained how multi-screening is evolving marketing communication phenomenon and how it affects consumer information and purchasing process.The past research has identified various stages of consumer information processing namely: need recognition,information search,alternative evaluation,purchase decision and post purchase evaluation.The present study also confirmed the existence of these various phases in multi-screening context,however,it indicated that consumer information processing has changed in the contemporary digitized environment since users can perform aforementioned multiple steps of information processing simultaneously,and automatically.Thus the marketers should consider more circular approaches to consumer information processing contrary to the traditional linear information processing model as suggested previously by researchers.Moreover,the study showed that searching for information through search engines is the most frequent and popular use of multi-screening in young Chinese.It suggests that firms should further focus on their search engine optimization and ensure their visible presence there.The results showed that impact of TV advertising is fading out in the contemporary digitized environment which is quickly being replaced by more interactive mediums such as search engines,review websites,mobile applications,video and content sharing sites.Thus,the integrated marketing communication should readily adopt the multi-screen strategy.The current study has investigated the phenomenon of simultaneous and sequential screening explicitly and explained how people pursue their screen-based goals in these two different forms of multi-screening.The study indicated that Chinese millennials predominately adopt multi-screening consciously and thoughtfully in order to selfregulate their routine screen-based activities.In the context of multitasking which is also termed as media multitasking,the results indicated that both conscious and nonconscious self-regulation have their positive influence on multi-screening behavior.The multi-tasking through multi-screens is on the rise in the young generation,and it is frequently performed during simultaneous use of multiple screens.Understanding multiscreen multitasking phenomenon will facilitate practitioners in various fields including psychology,marketing,and manufacturing.In the context of multi-screening for online shopping,the results showed that conscious self-regulation predicted both sequential and simultaneous screening for online shopping.On the other hand,nonconscious self-regulation failed to determine the simultaneous use of multi-screens for online shopping.Online shopping is one of the top activities performed during multi-screening,and this trend is higher in young generation who is increasingly adopting cross-device channel to fulfil their shopping needs.An improved knowledge of the multi-screening pathway for online shopping will provide assistance to online retailers,device manufacturers,marketers,and advertisers in developing appropriate business strategies.Moreover,the current research conducted a most recent survey targeting young consumers in order to understand their usability preferences for mobile and computer based online shopping platforms.The results indicated that,consumer's preferences for m-commerce(i.e.,mobile based)and ecommerce(i.e.,computer based)are contextual,since they prefer one medium over the other for different online shopping contexts.Knowledge of such preferences would be quite useful for professionals in the related areas for developing appropriate communication,branding and distribution strategies for the optimum online presence and revenues.Theoretical and practical implications have been discussed in the respective chapters whereas,key insights and recommendations are also detailed in the last chapter.