We captured the values of m-commerce to customers by directly eliciting these values from current and potential m-commerce users. But values are not naturally combined into cohesive categories with clear indications of the relationships among them (i.e., which specific values relate to other values and why). Keeney’s (1992) Value- Focused Thinking approach will help to resolve these problems. Value refers to the principles for evaluating the desirability of possible alternatives of consequences (Keeney, 1992). Value-Focused Thinking is fundamentally about deciding what is important and how to achieve it, and attempts to define essentially what decision makers (i.e., m-commerce users) care about. It provides a systematic approach for articulating and organizing values, which leads to a more complete set of alternative solutions and a clearer understanding of how each alternative contributes to the achievement of objectives (Keeney, 1992).
Value-Focused Thinking includes a process for identifying objectives. Keeney (1992) defined objectives as a statement of something that one desires to achieve, which can be characterized by three features: a decision context, an object, and a direction of preference. There are several popular techniques that can help stimulate the identification of possible objectives (Keeney, 1992): developing wish lists, identifying problems and shortcomings, alternatives, and consequences.
Objectives consist of fundamental objectives and means objectives. Fundamental objectives are concerned with the ends that decision makers value in a specific decision context; means objectives are methods to achieve ends (Keeney, 1992). Keeney (1992) suggested that means objectives can be differentiated from fundamental objectives by using the “Why is that important” (WITI) test. For each identified objective, asking “Why Is That Important?” yields two types of possible responses. One is that this objective is one of the essential reasons for interest in the situation. This is called a fundamental objective. The other answer is that an objective is important because of its implication for some other objectives. This is called a means objective.