Exploring Gender Influence on Customer's Intention to Engage Permission-based Mobile Marketing

This study conceptualizes and tests a theoretical framework that investigates customers’ intention to engage in permission-based mobile marketing communications with a firm in the hospitality sector and examines the effects of gender. The model proposes that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived trust affect attitude toward advertising, which in turn, together with perceived behavioural control over mobile communications and reference group influence, affects intention to engage in permission based mobile communications with a firm. Data is collected by the means of an online survey (n58,578) and analysis incorporates confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. The results support the conceptual model and show specifically that perceived usefulness of mobile communications explains a considerable amount of attitude toward advertising. Attitude was found to explain a considerable amount of the intention to receive messages from a firm. Furthermore, women are found to have a stronger relationship between mobile marketing communications with both intentions to visit and actual visits compared to men. The implications of these results are discussed, together with managerial implications, study limitations, and future research directions.