Instrumentality challenged : the adoption of a mobile parking service

Uses and gratifications and domestication research suggest that the gratifications obtained from mobile services go far beyond the instrumentality of flexibility and availability. On the other hand, ICT-adoption research focuses instrumentality by relying on concepts of usefulness and ease of use to explain the adoption of information and communication services of all kinds. Mobile parking services represent a crucial test of the importance of instrumental versus non-instrumental gratifications of mobile services. In a Norwegian field study, 459 early adopters of mobile parking services were studied using an extended model based upon the theory of planned behavior including instrumental, non-instrumental, social and resource-based determinants of adoption. The results show that even if mobile parking services have been designed to meet the functional needs of the parking car driver, derived motivations of expressiveness are just as important as perceived usefulness to the individual end-user's adoption of the services.