Platform-based mobile payments adoption in emerging and developed countries: Role of country-level heterogeneity and network effects

V. Kumar (), Nandini Nim () and Amit Agarwal ()
Additional contact information
V. Kumar: Indian School of Business
Nandini Nim: J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University
Amit Agarwal: J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University

Journal of International Business Studies, 2021, vol. 52, issue 8, No 5, 1529-1558

Abstract: Abstract Platform-based payment services such as mobile wallets (Mwallet) provide a unique value proposition to both customers and firms over other digital payment methods. Interestingly, the story of platform-based mobile payments adoption is unfolding differently across countries, with some emerging countries (China and India) outperforming developed countries. Using extant literature in International Business/International Marketing, industry reports, and qualitative interviews, we present a conceptual framework for mobile payments adoption at an aggregate level for customers and retailers. We present a set of hypotheses and derive the explanations using the literature on network effects and institutional theory. We test our framework on a diverse set of 30 countries and confirm the presence of network effects and the differential impact of perceived value, inertia, and culture on the adoption level of innovators and imitators. Importantly, we find a significant level of within- and between-country heterogeneity for mobile payment adoption, which provides further evidence for leapfrogging by emerging countries in the context of the mass adoption of mobile payments. These findings have significant implications for theory and practice in multinational organizations.

Keywords: platforms; network effects; two-sided markets; institutional theory; mobile payments; mobile wallets; emerging and developed countries; culture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41267-020-00346-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jintbs:v:52:y:2021:i:8:d:10.1057_s41267-020-00346-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nt/journal/41267/PS2

DOI: 10.1057/s41267-020-00346-6

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Business Studies is currently edited by John Cantwell

More articles in Journal of International Business Studies from Palgrave Macmillan, Academy of International Business
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().