Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Marketing in Mobile, Omni-Channel and Multi-Format Contexts(2019) Gu, Xian; Kannan, P. K.; Business and Management: Marketing; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation studies the marketing issues in mobile, omni-channel and multiformat contexts. In the first essay, while conventional wisdom indicates that apps have a positive impact on customer spending, I critically examine this premise by estimating the impact of app adoption on customers’ omni-channel spending in the context of a hotel chain and identifying the factors contributing to such impact. Exploiting the variation in customers’ timing of app adoption and difference-in-differences approach, I find that app adoption has a significant negative impact on total customer spending. This negative effect is robust to controlling for customer self-selection bias, measuring effects across alternative time frames, customer spending patterns and app usage behaviors, using different measures of purchase and alternative model specifications, and using different random samples. A survey of app adopters reveals that customers who adopt the focal app are also most likely to adopt competitors’ apps, and therefore are likely to search more and shop around, leading to decreased share of wallet with the firm. My analysis also reveals that the negative impact on spending is lower for those customers who use the apps for mobile check-in than those who use the apps for just searching. So by encouraging customers to engage with the full functionality of the app, firms can possibly mitigate the negative impact. In the second essay, I further develop an integrated dynamic structural model to investigate consumers’ decision to adopt the mobile app, and its subsequent impacts on their decisions to purchase using alternative shopping channels. The policy simulations show that consumers are less likely to make reservations with the focal firm if the firm had not introduced their apps. Finally, in the third essay, I investigate the strategy of extending the product line by providing an additional premium version as a means to spur demand for the existing premium version. I highlight how extending the results of the standard product line model is insufficient in such cases due to the conceptual nuances that the presence of the free version introduces in a freemium context. I conduct a randomized field experiment with an online content provider, the National Academies Press, which offers book titles in a PDF version for free and sells the paperback version for a premium. Overall, I show that paperback titles accompanied by an additional premium version, either an ebook or a hardcover format, have higher sales than those in the control condition. The positive impact on paperback sales is stronger for titles that are more popular or lower in price, and the effect of introducing the ebook version is higher when the ebook price is closer to the paperback price. By analyzing customer choices at the individual level, I identify the existence of the compromise effect and the attraction effect in the extended product line setting, a significant contribution not only in the freemium context but also to the product line literature.Item USER ENGAGEMENT WITH THE MOBILE NEWS CONTENT OF THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER AND THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS(2014) Incollingo, Jacqueline Soteropoulos; Steiner, Linda; Journalism; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Legacy newspaper organizations have attempted to adapt to the digital - and increasingly mobile - news environment as circulation and revenue have plummeted. In Internet traffic in general, and news use in particular, the use of mobile smartphones and tablets is eclipsing desktop and laptop use. Engaging mobile news users has become critical for the news media. In recent years, Interstate General Media (IGM) - the owner of the newspapers The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News - has introduced new mobile apps and optimized its websites for mobile use. This explanatory, mixed methods study examines how IGM's digital subscribers engage with mobile news. It is user-centered research which helps journalists and scholars understand the mobile news habits and practices of legacy newspapers' digital subscribers. Online survey results (n=632) demonstrate that participants who rely on mobile devices for news had statistically significant higher levels of engagement and enjoyment, in comparison to desktop/laptop users. Participants most at ease with technology tended to prefer mobile devices for news, and reported statistically significant higher levels of engagement and enjoyment. The information-seeking motivation for news use, which has been historically connected to newspapers, remains dominant for all digital subscribers. Digital users engage with news by sharing stories, but reported little interest in publicly commenting on articles or creating news content. Subsequent telephone interviews (n=30) revealed that convenience of mobile news was the most salient factor in device choice, and mobility led participants to consume more news. Themes of continuity indicate that motivations in print news use remain salient in digital and mobile news - specifically information-seeking, the pleasure of reading, and continued powerful daily routines and habits surrounding news use. Participants indicated they continue to value professional journalists' news selections and the traditional format of newspaper presentation, and their disinterest in creating their own news content, suggest that traditional notions of gatekeeping and professionalization are not undermined by new technology. Recommendations for IGM and other newspapers include regular use of "push-notices" to send breaking news; allowing degrees of news personalization; adapting the newspaper's "replica" edition to incorporate breaking news and content-sharing; and outreach to younger potential subscribers.Item ACCESSIBILITY IN CONTEXT: UNDERSTANDING THE TRULY MOBILE EXPERIENCE OF USERS WITH MOTOR IMPAIRMENTS(2014) Naftali, Maia; Findlater, Leah; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Touchscreen smartphones are becoming broadly adopted by the US population. Ensuring that these devices are accessible for people with disabilities is critical for equal access. For people with motor impairments, the vast majority of studies on touchscreen mobile accessibility have taken place in the laboratory. These studies show that while touchscreen input offers advantages, such as requiring less strength than physical buttons, it also presents accessibility challenges, such as the difficulty of tapping on small targets or making multitouch gestures. However, because of the focus on controlled lab settings, past work does not provide an understanding of contextual factors that impact smartphone use in everyday life, and the activities these devices enable for people with motor impairments. To investigate these issues, this thesis research includes two studies, first, an in-person study with four participants with motor impairments that included diary entries and an observational session, and, secondarily, an online survey with nine respondents. Using case study analysis for the in-person participants, we found that mobile devices have the potential to help motor-impaired users reduce the physical effort required for everyday tasks (e.g., turning on a TV, checking transit accessibility in advance), that challenges in touchscreen input still exist, and that the impact of situational impairments to this population can be impeding. The online survey results confirm these findings, for example, highlighting the difficulty of text input, particularly when users are out and mobile rather than at home. Based on these findings, future research should focus on the enhancement of current touchscreen input, exploring the potential of wearable devices for mobile accessibility, and designing more applications and services to improve access to physical world.