Evaluating mobile business applications in service and maintenance processes: results of a quantitative-empirical study

Mobile technologies offer great opportunities for improving business users’ productivity and for running business processes more effectively and efficiently. This particularly applies to service and maintenance processes which are highly information-intensive. Mobile services enable technicians to directly capture information more quickly and more precisely, while they are performing maintenance, inspection or repair tasks. Despite the increasing proliferation of mobile business applications, most of the existing empirical studies still focus on consumer-oriented mobile services. Thus, this study’s objective is to gain a better understanding of mobile business applications’ success in service and maintenance processes. For this purpose, we adapt the DeLone and McLean IS Success Model to this particular context. The model is validated with survey data from 374 mobile service users. Our results indicate that, besides system quality, the process support quality is the main determinant of individual benefits from using the mobile devices. The study’s findings support practitioners in explaining the levers with which mobile business applications can be improved. By empirically validating a success model, the study’s results advance theoretical development in the area of mobile service and maintenance systems, and present a basis for further research in this field.