The Adoption of “Silver” E-health Technologies First Hints on Technology Acceptance Factors for elderly in Italy Elena Bellio : Bocconi University – Milan - Italy Luca Buccoliero : Bocconi University – Milan - Italy. Università Bocconi, Marketing Department and CERMES. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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abUniversità Bocconi, Marketing Department and CERMES
Università Bocconi, founded in 1902, was the first Italian university to grant a degree in management.
For over a century, Bocconi has played a leading role in Italy's social and economic modernization. It has remained true to its founding values of being a major research university, with democratic values and open to the world, as well as financially and politically independent.
abMarketing Department and CERMES Research Center at Bocconi The Department of Marketing and the Center
for Research on Marketing and Services (CERMES) aim at developing research projects on the crucial themes of customer orientation and competitiveness in the service sectors.
Bearing in mind 1 main element:• The empowerment of
Public, healthcare and social marketing are the research priorities of «Citizens Lab»;
«Citizens Lab» fosters innovation through marketing strategies and tools in the area of public services provided to citizens (in markets or quasi-market contexts or where public administration is the main player).
The main research fields of Citizens Lab include: Healthcare services (hospitals and local healthcare units) Sm@rtcities and Public utilities (transportation, urban network, energy,
telecoms, etc.) Not for profit sector and Corporate Philantropy Value creation for patients and citizens through empowerment Territorial branding and value Social marketing: the systematic application of marketing, along with other
concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioural goals for a social good
abMarketing???? Please, consider the following definition….
« Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large».
To explore the factors that influence technology adoption, particularly where they differ from the factors that have proved to be important in predicting the acceptance of technologies by younger generations;
To reveal cultural differences and similarities in older people’s ICT adoption and use.
A questionnaire was drawn up. It was made of 42 questions divided into 7 sections:
- Personal data;- Use of Internet;- WEB, PC, communication;- Consumer Technology Goods;- Technology for Healthcare;- Domotic consumer applications;- Final opinion.
It addressed people over 65 years old. Most of the answers were based on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1
corresponds to strong disagreement and 7 strong agreement. There were also some dichotomist questions (yes or no).
109 questionnaires were filled out in Italy between June and September 2013. Once the data was collected the analysis phase started.
67% of female and 33% of male; The average age is 72.20 years while the oldest person is 90
years old; The 98.2% of the sample is Italian; About the 58% of the sample stays in cities instead about the
39% in small towns; The majority of the respondents (84.3%) is not working, in fact
82.4% declares to be retired; As for the family status, our sample is composed as follows:
• Married or in a couple account for 58.3%;• Widowed seniors represent the 24.1% of the total;• 11.1% are single;• separated or divorced seniors account for 6.5%.
Family bonds:• only 5.6% of the sample declares it “doesn’t have any relatives or son”;• in 9.3% of the cases relatives are living with the respondent;• in 14.8% they live in the same building. • the highest percentage is when relatives are “living in the same city“
(48.1%);• in 8.3% of cases relatives are “living in a city not far away”;• instead in 13.9% of the cases relatives are “living in a city far away”.
Health status:• the majority of the enrolled seniors has few symptoms (61.5%);• some of them face difficulties in regular activities (15.6%) ;• 13.8% feels perfectly well and has no symptoms;• Only one respondent has important symptoms and requires help and
frequent medical care. To better understand life styles and routine, a “personal frailty
index” was calculated by assessing the level of difficulty in carrying out possible daily activities. The more a person finds it hard to conduct the listed activities, the more he is considered frail.
The first hypothesis enables to understand how external variables influence perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in the case of the technological areas considered.
The presence of relatives living close or far from the enrolled person has a positive significant impact on the perceived usefulness when considering Internet, pc and communication technologies and domotics, while the frailty index negatively impacts on the ease of use perceived in case of pc and communication technologies, health technologies and domotics. In case of Internet the ease of use is positively linked to educational levels.
The second hypothesis enables to understand how social norms influence perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use in the case of the four technological areas considered.
In the four technological areas considered social norms are highly significant and positively linked to perceived usefulness. The positive influence is also registered in case of ease of use for internet, health technologies and domotics while the significant relationship becomes negative when considering pc and communication technologies.
abHypothesis 3: perceived usefulness and ease of use on behavioural intentions The third hypothesis enables to understand the influence
of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on behavioural intentions.
The most significant influence is registered for health technologies with an extremely high positive relationship in case of perceived usefulness and an high significant positive relationship as for perceived ease of use.
abHypothesis 4: perceived usefulness and ease of use on actual use The fourth hypotesis enables to understand the influence of
perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on actual use.
The most significant influence is registered for internet with a high positive relationship in case of perceived usefulness and an extremely high significant positive relationship as for perceived ease of use.
ICT success in supporting ageing society dynamics requires that new strategic approaches are adopted, both by industries and by public bodies.
First, technologies must be strictly linked with a clear analysis of silver citizens’ needs and demand. Traditionally, innovation has been characterized by a “technology” driven approach rather than by a “market” driven approach and too often the customer perspective has been missing.
Moreover, the elderly have been often considered as a homogenous segment of customers, and therefore no or limited efforts have been put on targeting different segments.
On the opposite, different segments with heterogeneous consumption behaviours are identifiable according with the following variables: health conditions;personal frailty; family status;social relationship.
Each segment should be understood as a mixture of needs, perceptions and interests that must be investigated in order to provide the right “value proposition” for ICT solutions.
Further analysis is in progress in order to improve the magnitude and the significance of the sample. Moreover, a comparative analysis with different Countries could be useful in order to present an international benchmark and to highlight the role of different national cultures.