Given the absence of universal measurements of user
experience, motivations, and values that can be applied to different countries,
a cross-cultural framework is useful to understand why certain smartphone services
are popular in some countries and not in others. Shin (2009) and Kim et al. (2004) have
urged researchers to conduct cross-country studies on mobile services in order to
determine how cross-country factors influence the diffusion of mobile communications.
The innovative and global nature of smartphones has fostered many visions of
comparative understanding among countries, although research in this area is still in
its infancy (Walsh et al., 2010). As smartphone services become increasingly global,
a cross-national comparison of their perceived value would aid the industry in developing
global markets. Customers universally expect technologies to offer experiences that
fulfill both their hedonic and pragmatic needs within their own cultural contexts
(Baron and Segerstad, 2010). Cross-cultural design ensures that technologies are easy to
use and that they provide favorable user experiences across cultural boundaries. Such a
comparative study may also be useful in academia since it would explore the theoretical
implications of studying cross-cultural technology adoption and usage.