A Multi-Actor, Multi-Criteria Approach for Technology Selection When Designing Mobile Information Systems

The fast ever-growing number of newly introduced mobile technologies makes the development of mobile information systems a somewhat complex activity. Decision makers providers, merchants, and consumers alike have to face great uncertainty and complexity regarding the acceptance of mobile technologies. Therefore, we stress that the selection process of an enabling technology for mobile commerce should be preceded with the use of a structured assessment methodology. With different available alternatives and various criteria for technology evaluation, multi-criteria decision making methods seem to be appropriate to support this selection process. Moreover, the success of introducing a new technology in a mobile information system depends on the preferences of varied involved actors in the market. We also consider in our approach the existence of multiple actors for the search of a technological consensus. As an illustration, we apply our approach to the mobile payment industry.