This dissertation consists of three essays that investigate the general decision process
of users’ choices regarding information technology (IT) applications and products,
focusing on placebo effects of software pricing, incorporating user perceptions and
product attributes in modeling software product choices, and firms’ practices of green IT.
Taking a customer-centric approach to users’ assessments of IT applications and products,
I address the evaluative responses of individual consumers and organizations to market
information including price, product attributes, and key contextual factors.
The objective of the first essay is to understand the placebo-like effects invoked by
the price of software products on consumers’ satisfaction, problem-solving performance,
and purchasing behavior. Built upon the response expectancy theory, a research
framework and a series of hypotheses are proposed. I test the hypotheses with a
controlled experiment, and the data supports most of the hypotheses. Specifically, a user’s
outcome expectancy, as activated by software price, affects not only his/her satisfaction,
but also the problem-solving performance using the software product. Satisfaction and
actual problem-solving performance in turn affects the user’s willingness-to-pay.
In order to better explain and predict consumers’ preferential choices of software
products, I propose in the second essay a model that incorporates product attributes and
consumer perceptions to estimate users’ software product selection. The influences of
product attributes on users’ perceptions of product characteristics are also examined. With
a choice-based conjoint study, and the collection of additional data on users’ perceived